Imaginary pictures, real life stories: the FotoDialogo method

Abstract

This paper explores methodological issues of recording, revisiting and portraying women’s life experiences and their connections to the past, to their families and to their communities. It examines the personal histories and collective memories of a group of low‐income Hispanic women, through the application of an innovative research tool that uses pictures and storytelling as projective techniques. The FotoDialogo Method uses a set of original drawings to initiate dialogical interviews, to inspire research participants to tell their stories, and to critically analyze the situations presented in these stories. The research study took place at a community‐based organization providing non‐formal education programs to the Spanish‐speaking population in a US inner‐city setting. The FotoDialogo Method has the potential to be an effective tool to help underprivileged women break the silence concerning their experiences of oppression and to engage them in a process of self‐discovery and transformation that empowers them to become change agents within their families and communities.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jennifer Herman, a graduate student in the International Training and Education Program at American University for her help in editing the manuscript and for making sure all references and citations were in the right place.

Notes

1. Latino and Hispanic are terms used concomitantly in this article to refer to people from Latin America and the Caribbean. The Puerto Rican participants in this study identified themselves as either Hispanics or Puerto Ricans. Hispanic is also a term used by the United States Bureau of the Census, and commonly used in statistical research to refer to people of Central and South American, Mexican and Caribbean origin.

2. Throughout this paper pseudonyms for actual persons are used to protect participants’ identities. Accounts are based on transcriptions of interviews and dialogue sessions. The author took a leadership role in all phases of the research study. She conducted the weekly group dialogue sessions in Spanish and translated transcripts of these sessions into English.

3. Participatory research is a method of social investigation involving community participation to help communities and groups tackle their problems. It was first used in developing countries in the late 1960s. Since then, it has been used all over the world, in both rural and urban areas, to help people work on issues related to education, literacy, community health, gender, agriculture, conflict and many others.

4. Phillion and He (2004, p. 6) refer to ‘life‐based literary narratives as a catch phrase for memoirs, autobiographies, and novels that focus on the intimate, daily experiences of diverse families, parents, students, and teachers’.

5. Letters and numbers refer to codes assigned to each FotoDialogo picture.

6. Among the US government assistance programs are: the Social Security Act of 1935, which established the major social programs—Social Security, unemployment compensation, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The Food Stamp Act of 1964, which provided coupons to be used when buying food; and the 1965 Amendments to the Social Security Act, which established Medicare and Medicaid. The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, enacted in 1972, provides a guaranteed annual income for elderly persons who are not eligible for Social Security, or whose past earnings qualify them for only minimal benefits.

7. Becoming a señorita, in Spanish, refers to a woman’s experience of having her first menstrual cycle, and thus becoming an adult female who is able to bear children.

8. The Partners for a Healthier Community (PHC) is a not‐for‐profit community development organization created in 1996 to improve community health for all populations and localities. At the time the author was conducting research at the CBO in Springfield, MA, she was also serving as an outreach network development consultant for the PHC helping to develop the Community Health Advocate training program in which several LWDG members participated.

9. Pierre Bourdieu (1986) uses ‘cultural capital’ as a sociological term to refer to the forms of knowledge, skill, education and any advantages people have that give them a higher status in society.