The contact zone: photography and social justice in educational research

Abstract

Issues of social justice associated with photography based educational research (PBER) are under-explored and under-theorised. In Part 1 of this paper, a practical synthesis of social justice in education is used to interrogate the purposes and processes of PBER, which then frames discussion of the particular affordances of images and the ethical issues involved. In Part 2, the ‘contact zone’ (Pratt, 1992) theorises PBER as a process of generating autoethnographic texts which work for social justice while acknowledging the external researcher’s position in relation to structures of injustice. A published study involving teacher educators in an area of conflict in Burma demonstrates this approach, which we term ‘contact zone pedagogy’. The approach offers a resolution of the associated ethical issues, with consequences for the way researchers and co-researchers are positioned in relation to social justice, and their creation, interpretation and presentation of photographs.

Keywords:

• Social justice
• photography-based research
• educational research
• photovoice
• contact zone
• autoethnography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Burma’s democracy movement prefers the form ‘Burma’ [rather than Myanmar], because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew John Howes

Dr Andrew Howes is senior lecturer and programme director in secondary teacher education at the University of Manchester, UK. He has published research on learning through international volunteering, inclusive education and science education, with a commitment to participative research and pedagogies. He is currently working with partners to develop the interagency of teachers and young people in relation to environmental and climate crisis.

Susie Miles

Dr Susie Miles is a senior lecturer in inclusive education and Associate Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research has explored innovative ways of documenting and sharing practice in inclusive education (including the use of photovoice) in contexts with limited material resources.