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ABSTRACT
Arts-based peacebuilding has gained attention, but evidence and research of its impact is fragmented and, in particular, the relationship between photography and peace is underexplored. This article examines photovoice as a tool for supporting everyday and community peace in conflict-affected communities. It identifies four ways that everyday peace indicator photovoice projects in Colombia bolstered community peace: by engendering healing, building territorial identity, enabling intergenerational dialogue, and catalysing action. These impacts emerged as photovoice built on enabling factors, extending existing community peacebuilding capacities, concerns and interventions. Reflecting on the constraints and tensions around working with photography in security-sensitive environments, we propose that participatory photography makes up a vital component of the peace photography genre. We argue that the careful, strategic harnessing of photovoice, and the visualisation of everyday peace, creates opportunities for raising the voices of conflict-affected communities, building shared imaginaries and nurturing dialogue, healing and action.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Relevant links
Humanity United blog: Photography as a Tool for Peace: What comes from picturing everyday peace for communities in Colombia?
The Conversation: How photography can build peace and justice in war-torn communities
Project webpages on EPI website:
https://www.everydaypeaceindicators.org/photovoice-in-colombia
Peace Science Digest: Photography as a tool for Peace?
Notes
1 J.P. Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford University Press, 2005), 5.
2 The literature is extensive, but this Special Issue introduction provides a good overview: C. Cohen, ‘Special Issue: Creative Approaches to Transitional Justice: Contributions of Arts and Culture’, International Journal of Transitional Justice 14, no. 1 (2020); See also Mitchell, J. et al., eds., Peacebuilding and the Arts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020); and M. Shank, and L. Schirch, ‘Strategic Arts-Based Peacebuilding’, Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research 33, no. 2 (2008).
3 C. Zelizer, ‘The Role of Artistic Processes in Peacebuilding in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, Peace and Conflict Studies 10, no. 2 (2003): 62–76; and F. Mkwananzi and F. Melis Cin, Post Conflict Participatory Arts (Routledge, 2022).
4 T. Fairey and R. Kerr, ‘What Works? Creative approaches to transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, International Journal of Transitional Justice 14, no. 1 (2020): 142–64.
5 M.-A. Hunter and L. Page, ‘What is “the good” of arts-based peacebuilding? Questions of value and evaluation in current practice’, Peace and Conflict Studies 21, no. 2 (2014): 117–34.
6 P. D. Rush and O. Simić, The Arts of Transitional Justice: Culture, Activism, and Memory after Atrocity (Springer: Springer Series in Transitional Justice, 2014).
7 V. Baú, ‘Building peace through social change communication: participatory video in conflict affected communities’, Community Development Journal 50, no. 1 (2015): 123.
8 Hunter & Page, What is ‘The Good’ of Arts-Based Peacebuilding?, 117.
9 R. Bleiker, ed., Visual Global Politics (London: Routledge, 2018).
10 Frank Möller, Peace Photography (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
11 F. Ritchin, Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary and the Citizen (Aperture, 2013); and F. Möller, ‘Peace’, in Visual Global Politics, ed. Roland Bleiker (Routledge, 2018), 220–4.
12 S. Clark, ‘The “local-visual turn”: understanding peacebuilding in post conflict societies using photo-elicitation’, Peacebuilding (2022).
13 S. Allan, ‘Documenting war, visualising peace: Towards peace photography’, in Expanding Peace Journalism, ed. I. Shaw, R. Hackett and J. Lynch (University of Sydney Press, 2011), 163.
14 C. Wang and M.A. Burris, ‘Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment’, Health Education & Behavior 24, no. 3 (1997): 369–87.
15 R. Mac Ginty, Everyday Peace: How So Called Ordinary People Can Disrupt Violent Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2021), 549.
16 Lederach, Moral Imagination, ix.
17 ‘Personas defensoras de derechos humanos y líderes sociales en Colombia’, Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, 2019, https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/informes/pdfs/DefensoresColombia.pdf (accessed December 19, 2022).
18 ‘Five Years After the Signing of the Colombian Final Agreement: Reflections from Implementation Monitoring. Dec 2020-Nov 2021’, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, 2022, https://curate.nd.edu/downloads/41687h17b57. Published in June 2022, The Colombian Truth Commission’s final report recommended the creation of a territorial peace strategy that confronted the impacts of drug trafficking and other elements and worked to promote a culture of peace throughout the country.
19 A. Castillejo-Cuellar, ‘La paz en pequeña escala: fracturas de la vida cotidiana y las políticas de la transición en Colombia’, Revista de Estudios Colombianos [Preprint] no. 53 (2019).
20 M. Nilsson, ‘Building Peace Amidst Violence: An Analysis of Colombia’s Policies to Address Security and Development Challenges’, Iberoamericana – Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 47, no. 1 (2018): 34–44.
21 O. Simić, Arts and Transitional Justice, 243.
22 Yolanda Sierra-León, ‘Relaciones Entre El Arte y Los Derechos Humanos’. Revista Derecho Del Estado 32 (2014): 77–100.
23 E. Hernández Delgado and C.P. Roa Mendoza, ‘Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding: The Experience of the Peasant Worker Association of the Carare River’, in Civil Resistance and violent conflict in Latin America, eds. C. Mouly and E. Hernández Delgado (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 137–56; and M. Hallward, J. Masullo and Cécile Mouly, ‘Civil Resistance in Armed Conflict: Leveraging Nonviolent Action to Navigate War, Oppose Violence and Confront Oppression’, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 12, no. 3 (2017): 1–9.
24 Castillejo-Cuellar, La paz en pequeña escala, 2.
25 H. Redwood, T. Fairey and J. Hasić, ‘Hybrid Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Participatory Arts and Youth Activism as Vehicles of Social Change’, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 1, no. 16 (2022).
26 F. Möller, ‘From Aftermath to Peace: Reflections on a Photography of Peace’, Global Society 31, no. 3 (2017): 331.
27 J. Masullo, C. Mouly and M.B. Garrido, ‘Alternative Forms of Civilian Noncooperation with Armed Groups: The Case of Samaniego in Colombia’, in Civil Resistance and violent conflict in Latin America, eds. C. Mouly and E. Hernández Delgado (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 111–36.
28 For a comprehensive review see D. Kalekin-Fishman, ‘Sociology of everyday life’, Current Sociological Review 61, no. 5–6 (2013): 714–32.:
29 M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (University of California Press, 1984).
30 R. Mac Ginty and O. Richmond, ‘The Local Turn in Peacebuilding: A critical Agenda for Peace’, Third World Quarterly 34, no. 5 (2013): 772.
31 Hanna Leonardsson and Rudd Gustav, ‘The “local Turn” in Peacebuilding: A Literature Review of Effective and Emancipatory Local Peace-Building’. Third World Quarterly 36, no. 5 (2015): 825–39.
32 Lederach, Building Peace; S. Autesserre, The Frontlines of Peace (Oxford University Press, 2021); and O. Richmond, ‘Critical Agency, Resistance and a Post-Colonial Civil Society’, Cooperation and Conflict 46, no. 4 (2011): 419–40.
33 R. Mac Ginty, Everyday Peace: Bottom-Up and Local Agency in Conflict-Affected Societies.
34 Brewer, The Sociology of Everyday Life Peacebuilding.
35 R. Mac Ginty, Everyday Peace, 4.
36 Ibid., 8.
37 T. Fairey, Participatory Arts and Peace-building.
38 R. Bleiker, ed., Visual Global Politics (London: Routledge, 2018); and E. Hutchison and R. Bleiker, ‘Visuality of Peace and Conflict’, in The Oxford Handbook of Peacebuilding, Statebuilding and Peace Formation, eds. Oliver P Richmond & Gëzim Visoka (Oxford University Press, 2021).
39 Bleiker, Visual Politics, 3.
40 F. Möller, Peace Photography, 14.
41 Möller, Peace Asesthetics; S. Allan, Documenting War, Visualising Peace: Towards Peace Photography, 163; and Fred Ritchin, Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary and the Citizen (Aperture, 2013), 122.
42 F. Möller, ‘Peace Aesthetics: A Patchwork’, Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research 45, no. 1 (2020): 32.
43 F. Möller, Peace Aesthetics, 29.
44 F. Möller and D. Shim, ‘Visions of Peace in International Relations’, International Studies Perspectives 20, no. 3 (2019): 245.
45 See Ritchin’s description of TAFOS in Ritchin, Bending the Frame, 128 and Möller’s examination of a project in Brazil (Visual Peace, 122) and Rwanda (Peace Photography, 153).
46 M. Brinton Lykes, Martin Terre Blanche and Brandon Hamber, ‘Narrating Survival and Change in Guatemala and South Africa: The Politics of Representation and a Liberatory Community Psychology’, American Journal of Community Psychology 31, no. 1–2 (2003): 79–90.
47 Lykes et al., Narrating Survival and Change (2003), 79.
48 Jessica M. Smith, ‘From Subjects of Stories to Agents of Change: Countering Dominant Discourses of Women and Peacebuilding’, in Healing and Peacebuilding after War. Transforming Trauma in Bosnia and Herzegovina, eds. J. Funk, N. Good and ME. Berry (Routledge, 2020).
49 Cubillos Rodriguez, Edwin Alfredo, Voces Como Imágenes: Ciudadanías En El Limite, Fotografia y Agencia Cultural En Altos de Cazucá (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, 2017); and Alexander L. Fattal, Shooting Cameras for Peace. Youth, Photography, and the Colombian Armed Conflict (Peabody Museum Press, 2020).
50 Valentina Bau, ‘Participatory Photography for Peace: Using Images to Open Up Dialogue After Violence’, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 10, no. 3 (2015): 74–88; and V. Baú, Building peace through social change communication.
51 V. Baú, Building peace through social change communication, 134.
52 Chris Peters and S. Allan, ‘Everyday imagery: Users’reflections on smartphone cameras and communication’, Convergence 24, no. 4 (2018): 357–73.
53 Ariella Azoulay, The Civil Contract of Photography (Cambridge MA: Zone Books, 2008).
54 For more information on and findings from Everyday Justice see P. Dixon and P. Firchow, ‘Collective Justice: Ex-Combatants and Community Reparations in Colombia’, Journal of Human Rights Practice 14, no. 2 (2022): 434–53.
55 C. Church, ‘Evaluating Peace-Building: Not Yet All It Could Be’, in In Advancing Conflict Transformation: The Berghof Handbook II, eds. Austin Beatrix, Martina Fischer and HansJ. Giessmann (Barbara Budrich Publishers, 2011), 459–82.
56 C. Scharbatke-Church, Peacebuilding Evaluation, 37.
57 Pamina Firchow, Reclaiming Everyday Peace: Local Voices in Measurement and Evaluation After War (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 3.
58 Devised by Pamina Firchow and Roger MacGinty, the EPI method is written about in detail by P. Firchow, Reclaiming Everyday Peace.
59 R. Mac Ginty, Everyday Peace, 17.
60 Robert Chambers, Who Counts? The Quiet Revolution of Participation and Numbers (UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2007).
61 P. Firchow, Reclaiming Everyday Peace, 3.
62 The research design and a discussion around the integration of the EPI and photovoice methods is discussed in detail here: T. Fairey, P. Firchow and P. Dixon, ‘Images and Indicators: Mixing Participatory Methods to Build Inclusive Rigour’, Action Research (2022).
63 Camille A. Sutton-Brown, ‘Photovoice: A Methodological Guide’, Photography & Culture 7, no. 2 (2014): 169–85; and L. Liebenberg, ‘Thinking Critically About Photovoice: Achieving Empowerment and Social Change’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 17 (2018): 1–9.
64 C. Catalani, and M. Minkler, ‘Photovoice: A Review of the Literature in Health and Public Health’, Health Education & Behaviour 37, no. 3 (2010): 424–51.
65 R. Chambers, ‘Inclusive rigour for complexity’, Journal of Development Effectivness 7, no. 3 (2015): 327–35.
66 T. Fairey, P. Firchow and P. Dixon, Indicators and Images.
67 Ibid.
68 It was not a criteria that photovoice participants need to have actively participated in the EPI process; however, in both communities, there was some overlap with 40–50% of photovoice participants having participated in the EPI workshops.
69 The EPI process generates anything from 100–130 indicators in each community. The photovoice group work with a reduced list of 30–40 of these indicators, selected by the EPI research team according to criteria that considered their popularity and the fair representation of different interests and groups in the community.
70 See note 66 above.
71 A. Strauss, and J. Corbin, ‘Grounded Theory Methodology: An Overview’, in Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed. N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1994), 273–84.
72 L. Liebenberg, Thinking Critically About Photovoice.
73 Möller, Peace Aesthetics, 29.
74 Möller, Peace Photography.
75 Foster-Fishman et al., Using Methods That Matter: The Impact of Reflection, Dialogue and Voice.
76 Birthe C. Reimers, 108AD. ‘Peacebuilding in Refugee Resettlement Communities’, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 11, no. 3 (2016).
77 Amy Werremeyer, Elizabeth Skoy, William Burns and Amber Batch-Gorman, ‘Photovoice as an Intervention for Students Living with Mental Illness: A Pilot Study’, Mental Health Clinician 10, no. 4 (2020): 237–43.
78 Elizabeth D. Carlson, Joan Engebretson and Robert M. Chamberlain. ‘Photovoice as a Social Process of Critical Consciousness’, Qualitative Health Research 16 no. 6 (2006): 836–52.
79 First, Jennifer, Toby Mills-Sandoval, Nathan L First, and J.Brian Houston, Picturing Resilience Intervention: Using Photovoice for Youth Resilience (Disaster and Community Crisis Center, University of Missouri, 2016); and Neil Gibson, Therapeutic Photography: Enhancing Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy and Resilience (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018).
80 Nicola Gerada Power, Moss Edward Norman and Kathryne Dupré, ‘Rural Youth and Emotional Geographies: How Photovoice and Words alone Methods Tell Different Stories of Place’, Journal of Youth Studies 17, no. 8 (2014): 1114–29.
81 M Candace Christensen, ‘Using Photovoice to Treat Trauma Resulting from Gender-Based Violence’, Journal of Community Psychology (2018): 1–14.
82 See Fairey 2017 for a review of the literature in this area. Also see Shank & Schirch 2008, Zelizer 2003.
83 Doris Manco (photovoice participant), Interview, November 13th, 2020.
84 Mary B. Anderson, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – Or War (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999).
85 N. Gibson, Therapeutic Photography.
86 A. Rolbiecki, et al., ‘“Waiting for the Cold to End”: Using Photovoice as a Narrative Intervention for Survivors of Sexual Assault’, Traumatology 22, no. 4 (2016).
87 See note 83 above.
88 Carmen Marquez Bertel (Urama resident), interview, July 22nd, 2020.
89 Tiffany Fairey and Liz Orton. ‘Photography As Dialogue’, Photography & Culture 12, no. 3 (2019).
90 Douglas Harper, ‘Talking about Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation’, Visual Studies 17, no. 1 (2002): 13–19. 18.
91 Lykes el al., Narrating survival and change in Guatemala and South Africa, 84.
92 Alice McIntyre, ‘Through the Eyes of Women: Photovoice and Participatory Research as Tools for Reimaging Place’, Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 10, no. 1 (2003): 47–66.
93 C. Mouly, and E. Hernández Delgado, eds., Civil Resistance and Violent Conflict in Latin America. Mobilizing for Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
94 E. Cubillos Rodriguez, Voces Como Imágens.
95 Ulrich Oslender, ‘Another History of Violence: The Production of “Geographies of Terror” in Colombia’s Pacific Coast Region’, Latin American Perspectives 35 no. 5 (2008): 77–102.
96 Oscar Botero (resident of Urama), Interview, October 8th, 2020.
97 Ricardo Correa (Dabeiba Resident and teacher), Interview, July 22nd, 2020.
98 P. Riaño-Alcalá, Encounters with Memory and mourning: Public Art as a collective pedagogy of reconciliation. Public Acts: Curriculum and Desires of Social Change, ed., Erica Meiners and Francisco.
99 L.K. Taylor, et al., ‘YouthLEAD: Measuring the indirect impact of youth peacebuilding through PhotoVoice and community murals in Colombia’, in Post- Conflict Participatory Arts. Faith Mkwananzi and F. Melis Cin, eds. (Routledge, 2021), 264–288.
100 Rigoberto Tuberquía (Community Action Board President), Interview, August 5th, 2020.
101 The capacity of photovoice to enable participants to forge more positive representations than words-alone methods has been noted by Power et al, Rural youth and emotional geographies.
102 Rigoberto Tuberquía (Community Action Board President), Interview, August 5th, 2020.
103 The Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP) or Special Justice for Peace is the justice component of Colombia’s government led transitional justice mechanisms that is responsible for investigating and bringing to trial armed actors who committed abuses during the conflict and satisfying victim’s rights to justice.
104 Espacios Territoriales de Capacitación y Reincorporación (ETCRs) are government-built settlements, instigated as part of the 2016 Peace Accords, designed to demobilise and facilitate former combatant’s transition back to civilian life.
105 Guillermo Berrio (Urama resident), Interview, July 22nd, 2020.
106 E. Prins ‘Participatory photography: A tool for empowerment or surveillance?’, Action Research 8, no. 4 (2010): 426–43.
107 L. Vastapuu, ‘Auto-Photographing (in)Securities’; and Denov et al., Engaging War Affected Youth through Photography.
108 Measures included community organisers advised on specific local security concerns; the projects were well-advertised and gained authorisation from key parties including local political and religious leaders and police; photovoice participants wore project t-shirts so they could be easily identified; when necessary they were accompanied by community representatives while out photographing. Participants were supported to find visual alternatives or metaphors when they wanted to take photographs of indicators directly associated with armed conflict; the subjects of images gave informed consent for their contributions to the projects and identities were hidden when appropriate.
109 R. MacGinty, Everyday Peace, 6.
110 J. Shaw, ‘Beyond Empowerment Inspiration: Interrogating the Gap between the Ideals and Practice Reality of Participatory Video’, in Handbook of Participatory Video, ed. EJ. Milne, C.Mitchell and N. de Lange (Altamira Press, 2012), 21.
111 Masullo et al., Alternative Forms of Civilian Noncooperation.
112 John Berger, ‘“Understanding A Photograph”’, in Selected Essays and Articles: The Look of Things (Pelican Books, 1972), 28.
113 Ariella Azoulay, The Civil Contract of Photography (Cambridge MA: Zone Books, 2008), 166.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Tiffany Fairey
Tiffany Fairey is a visual sociologist and Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow based in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her current research focuses on the role of images and image-making in building peace and dialogue. Founder of PhotoVoice, she has over 25 years experience of working with photovoice and participatory photography methods.
Edwin Cubillos
Edwin Cubillos is the photovoice co-ordinator of EPI’s Everyday Justice project. He is a human rights activist, photographer and cultural manager who has worked with the Colombian Ministry of Culture and the National Museum of Memory.
Manuela Muñoz
Manuela Muñoz is an actress who graduated from the Escuela de Formación de Actores del Pequeño Teatro de Medellín with expertise in Art Therapy and Theater of the Oppressed.