Embracing new paths in visual research facilitation: opportunities, tensions & ethical considerations

Abstract

This introduction to the special section establishes facilitation as an important yet underreported component of visual sociological research. Although institutional and regulatory ethics have been ingrained in university research settings, scholars such as Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (2014) have asked us to consider the ways in which participants’ and communities’ refuse research influence our ethical frameworks. We take up Tuck and Yang’s call to ask: What does ethical research facilitation look like beyond institutional guidelines in visual research? What might deep, ethical, meaningful or useful facilitation look like in visual studies? Putting social justice concerns about power within research processes at the fore, the editorial argues that thinking through research facilitation must go beyond researcher reflexivity, and move towards action within the research settings in which we work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation [2019-005]; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [2019-153005,430-2018-00264].

Notes on contributors

Casey Burkholder

Casey Burkholder is an Associate Professor at the University of New Brunswick’s Faculty of Education. Her research program centers on exploring participatory visual research approaches with youth to explore their ways of knowing and experiencing school and social structures. This work seeks to work with youth activists to agitate for social change through participatory visual research approaches.

Funké Aladejebi

Funké Aladejebi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Dr. Aladejebi researches African Canadian history and holds a PhD in Canadian History from York University. Her articles on Black Canadian history and feminist pedagogies have appeared in Education Matters, Ontario History, and the Southern Journal of Canadian Studies.

Josh Schwab-Cartas

Joshua Schwab-Cartas is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. Joshua's research explores Indigenous language revitalization strategies with a community of intergenerational Didxazá speakers.  Combining his familiarity with contemporary oral histories of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico with his background in ancient and colonial Zapotec visual culture, Joshua’s work uses participatory video as an educational tool in the Isthmus Zapotec community of his maternal grandfather, Ranchu Gubiña.