Premium
REFLEXIVITY AS ENACTMENT OF CRITICAL COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIES: DILEMMAS OF VOICE AND POSITIONALITY IN A MULTI‐COUNTRY PHOTOVOICE STUDY
Author(s) -
Suffla Shahnaaz,
Seedat Mohamed,
Bawa Umesh
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.21691
Subject(s) - photovoice , reflexivity , sociology , context (archaeology) , embodied cognition , participatory action research , critical consciousness , citizen journalism , epistemology , power (physics) , consciousness , gender studies , pedagogy , social science , political science , anthropology , economic growth , geography , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , law , economics , archaeology
The performance of critical community psychologies is always contextual, intersubjective, embodied, and politicized in nature. In this article, we draw from the epistemological standpoint that researcher and participant subjectivities are fully implicated in the (co)‐construction of knowledge and should therefore be documented and made retrievable. Through the lens of reflexivity, and drawing from an African‐centered Photovoice project on youth representations of safety, we surface the tensions, contestations, instabilities, power variances, constraints and inventiveness in our research to expose voice and positionality dilemmas inherent in the enactment of critical community psychologies. We also seek to record context‐sensitive practice to encapsulate how this particular innovative project operates in real‐world settings. We argue that reflexivity is central to participatory forms of knowledge construction and consciousness raising directed at transformation, and rendered all the more significant in research contexts characterized by difference, inequality, and marginality.