Participatory Visual & Digital Research: Studying & Transforming Urban Environments Prof. Krista Harper Anthropology & CPPAUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

kharper@anthro.umass.edu@kristamharper

Studying urban environments: The view from anthropology

Beliefs, power, & urban environments

“Senses of place” & place attachment

Cultural forms of wayfinding, dwelling, & everyday practices

Methods: participant observation, interviews, “eliciting the participants’ point of view”

Transforming Urban Environments:

Planning, Policy, & Design

Human environment

Participatory Design

Universal Design

But how do we get there from here?

Participatory Visual & Digital

Research

Participatory action research (PAR) Visual &

digital media

The Participatory Turn

Critique of traditional ethnography Post-colonial, feminist, postmodern

Awareness of power relationships

Calls for “engaged research”

Rise of Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Digital Media Technology

Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control

Studying Environments with Participatory Visual & Digital

Methods

Participatory digital archives, museums, & exhibitions

Participatory GIS (PGIS) & mapping

Participatory video

Digital storytelling

PhotoVoice

The PVDR process

Negotiating goals

Integrating participants in research process

Using appropriate technologies

Considering ethics of representation

Anticipating audiences and dissemination

Participatory Digital Archives

Photo credits: Brown Paper photo archives (top)

Photo credits: Ilya Utekhin

PGIS

South Africa: Decolonizing land use planning

New Zealand: Māori GIS (left)

PGIS & Storymapping

“Third Ward Speaks”: Putting an African-American neighborhood’s history on the map

murmur Toronto

“locative storytelling”via web & smartphone

Participatory Video

Digital Storytelling Darcy Alexandra’s work with asylum

seekers in Ireland

Photovoice

• Photo• Voice• Being heard

Using Photovoice to study urban environments

Hungary: Understandings of environmental injustice United States: “A place for stories” after urban renewal Portugal: Senses & affect in urban gardening

Hungary: Understandings of environmental injustice

Sajószentpéter• Pop. 14000 (2500

Roma), no. Hungary• Glass & coal city; hard hit after 1989• Roma (Gypsy)

neighborhood• Collaboration with

SAKKF, community organization

•Six young people from SAKKF, a Roma community org.•Anthropologist & SAKKF president as facilitators

Environment:Values &

Issues

Photos: Judit Bari & Sándor Keleman

Photo: Gábor Szabó

Values: Bicycling

Concerns: Sewerage

Photo: Sándor Keleman

Photo: Betti Rúzsa

Concerns: Water

Photo: Klaudia Keleman

Photo Exhibitions

in Sajószentpéter& Budapest

United States: “A place for stories” after urban renewalTallahassee, FL & Springfield, MA

Photo: Gretchen Gano

Portugal: Senses & affect in urban gardening

Photo: Sónia Gáspar

“[Here is] someone literally, with her hands on the land…Only in doing it will things germinate, right? If we are not engaged and willing to do something – in this case to plant a garden – nothing happens. So, we have to put our hands on the land to make things grow.”

Gostamos de mexer na terra

Adaptamo-nos e resistimos

Photo: Elis Serra

Concluding thoughts

Participatory visual & digital research offers:

New ways to elicit stories & collect data

Engaging participants more meaningfully

Policy impact

Thank you!

Questions? Contact me atkharper@anthro.umass.edu

On Twitter: @kristamharper