Photo-narrative processes with children and young people

Abstract

This article focuses on the photo-narrative research process with children and young people. The photo-narrative method invites children and young people to answer research questions by first taking photographs and then talking to the researcher about them. We reflect critically on our own photo-narrative study by asking such questions as: In what ways can the photo-narrative method be seen as a participative method? How were the various power relations between the child and the researcher actualized? What methodological and ethical challenges did we encounter during the research process? The study data were photographs and narratives by eight children and young people (aged 4 to 15 years), who were each interviewed twice. In the first interview, each participant was given a disposable camera and they were asked to take photographs of things and situations, persons, objects, and feelings relating to their everyday lives during one week. The second interview was a narrative interview where each participant could select the photographs he or she wanted to talk about. In this approach, interpretation of the photographs was primarily in the hands of the children and young people, while interpretation of the narratives was the responsibility of the researcher.