4.4 Interpreting Visual (and Verbal) Data: Teenagers’ Views on Belonging to a Language Minority Group in Finland

Capturing Nordic Identifications Through Participatory Photography

“…The analysis started with a careful overview of the photographs (Keats, 2009). When analyzing the photographs, the captions helped the researchers to interpret the students' photographs as intended by the students (Holm, Londen & Mansikka, 2015). This was especially crucial when interpreting photographs that were more symbolic or metaphorical.…”

“…This was especially crucial when interpreting photographs that were more symbolic or metaphorical. The research team categorized the students' photographs according to the emerging themes, but also into informative photographs and symbolic photographs (Holm, Londen & Mansikka, 2015;Elliot, Reid & Baumfield, 2017). A preliminary descriptive coding into a theme was made during the first phase of analyzing the photographs.…”

“…While the participants take the photos and are engaged from the beginning of the project, it enables the researchers to get a sense of what the participants want to show as important or interesting from their own worlds (Holm, 2018). Further, participatory photography can be described as a way to study identities and identifications, since it allows the participants, in our case upper secondary students, to control how they portray their perceptions of who they are (Holm, Londen & Mansikka, 2015).…”

“…Symbolic photographs are more complex and more difficult to interpret without understanding the photographers' habitus and the context (Holm et al, 2015). However, Figure 4: "It's Nordic to bike and think about the environment" (Danish student) Figure 5: "Skiing is a Nordic tradition" (Swedish student) Figure 6: "Our nature is unique and wonderful -especially in wintertime" (Finnish student) Figure 7: "To party is a part of life" (Danish student) in most cases they also deal with deeper, more serious issues that might be difficult for the students to express in words.…”

“…The study was conducted through participatory photography and by this, our aim was to produce both robust information on the foci and different kinds of understanding and information (Pink, 2012;Rose, 2016). We draw on a recent empirical study from four Nordic countries to analyze this, and also on the authors' previous work related to the topics and empirical work on gender, class and ethnicity in urban schools (Öhrn, 2009Öhrn & Weiner, 2017) and justice through education, bilingual school space, intercultural education, arts-based visual research and ethnographic analyses (Holm, 2014(Holm, , 2018Holm, Londen & Mansikka, 2015;Holm, Sahlström & Zilliacus, 2018). The focus of this paper is though specifically on how participatory photography can be used in exploring young people's identifications with, in this case, the Nordic.…”