Participatory Visual and Digital Research in Action

"...As I write these words now--after having read this wonderfully thorough book--I realize that I have been conducting visual, digital, and action-oriented participatory research for the last few years, much to my ignorance. My feeling is that this volume will have a similar converting effect on many other readers."... --From the Foreword by Phillip Vannini Participatory Visual and Digital Research in Action is a text I will turn to again and again in my graduate qualitative research methods course as I encourage students to explore a range of visual methods. This text provides not only powerful examples of participatory visual methods and digital research at work, but also guides the novice researcher in how to go about this work in rigorous, systematic fashion. By demystifying both the possibilities and lure of innovative approaches, the editors and contributors create spaces for rich, complex conversation about method, truth, stories, and the new landscape of inquiry. As an ethnographer and visual artist, this text will have a prominent place in my professional library. --Sally Campbell Galman, University of Massachusetts-Amherst "...What do asylum seekers in Ireland, Somali refugees in Maine and homeless youth in LA all have in common? In this exciting new collection, Gubrium and Harper show how all of these groups -- and a variety of others -- have used digital and visual methods in collaboration with anthropologists. These case studies illustrate how new technologies engender new modes of engagement and raise new questions about power and ethics in fieldwork. I consider this book, along with its companion volume, Participatory Visual and Digital Methods, essential reading for anyone committed to the values of public scholarship and interested in exploring not just the how of using cutting edge methodologies in our ethnographic research but also the why."... --Susan Brin Hyatt, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis