Braiding the Healing Gifts of Photovoice for Social Change: The Means Are Ends in the Making

Abstract

Photovoice is an important participatory action method for motivating social change. The potential for this change within the processes of the method remains under-explored. We present the voice and perspectives of three health promotion practitioners who have important connections to photovoice: a grandmother and co-founder of the method, a nurse from Wales, and an early adopter seeking change. Through braided storytelling, the voices describe their history with photovoice and how their relationship to the method has changed over time, arguing ultimately that in photovoice the means are as important as the ends for advancing relations with others, understanding and working with power, and realizing the gifts the processes bring.