Social and Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Group, School of Medicine, University of Alcala, 28871, Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain.
Madrid Salud, Public Health Institute, Madrid City Council, Madrid, Spain.
BMC Public Health. 2018 Apr 2;18(1):432. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5335-7.
Photovoice is a visual research methodology with the intention to foster social change. Photovoice has been used to investigate change in empowerment in vulnerable communities, However, the individual experience of participants involved in Photovoice projects is seldom scrutinized. Our aim was to explore and describe the individual experiences of the female individuals who participated in a previous Photovoice project. We analyzed a change in the women's empowerment in terms of: 1) gain in knowledge and skills, 2) change in self-perception, and 3) access to and use of resources.
This qualitative study took place in the low-income District of Villaverde (Madrid, Spain), from January-June 2016. We conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with the female residents who had participated in the previous Photovoice project. We also collected field notes. We analyzed these data through a direct qualitative content analysis. The three outlined dimensions of empowerment provided guidance for the analysis of the results.
We found positive changes in the three dimensions of empowerment: 1) participants acquired new knowledge and developed critical awareness of their community; 2) the social recognition participants received transformed their self-perception; and 3) the project allowed them to expand their social networks and to build new links with different actors (research partners, local decision makers, media and the wider public).
Photovoice projects entail the opportunity for empowering participants. Future research using Photovoice should assess the influence it has on participants' empowerment changes and how to sustain these individual and social changes.
摄影是一种视觉研究方法，旨在促进社会变革。摄影已被用于研究弱势社区赋权的变化，但参与摄影项目的参与者的个人经历很少受到仔细审查。我们的目的是探索和描述参与先前摄影项目的女性个体的个人经历。我们根据以下三个方面分析了女性赋权的变化：1）知识和技能的获得，2）自我认知的改变，3）资源的获取和利用。
这项定性研究于 2016 年 1 月至 6 月在西班牙马德里的 Villaverde 低收入区进行。我们对之前参加过摄影项目的女性居民进行了 10 次半结构化访谈，并收集了实地笔记。我们通过直接的定性内容分析对这些数据进行了分析。赋权的三个概述维度为分析结果提供了指导。
我们发现赋权的三个维度都发生了积极的变化：1）参与者获得了新的知识，并对他们的社区有了批判性的认识；2）参与者获得的社会认可改变了他们的自我认知；3）该项目使他们能够扩大社交网络，并与不同的参与者（研究合作伙伴、当地决策者、媒体和更广泛的公众）建立新的联系。
摄影项目为参与者提供了赋权的机会。未来使用摄影的研究应评估它对参与者赋权变化的影响，以及如何维持这些个人和社会变化。
