Vulnerable Youth’s Perspectives and Priorities for Informal Settlements: Photovoice Evidence from Lusaka, Zambia

Abstract

The “youth bulge” in developing world cities is a significant planning challenge that requires new participatory tools for planning more inclusive cities. Photovoice data from 38 orphaned and vulnerable youth from Lusaka’s informal settlements (where median age is 15) are presented to: further understanding of unmet youth needs in informal settlements; compare participants’ priorities to informal settlement development goals; and demonstrate photovoice for a planning audience. Participant priorities include personal safety, nuisance abatement, safe spaces for socializing/recreation, and spaces for self-reflection and personal development. The article shows that youth priorities warrant departures from typical practice and that photovoice effectively elicits essential information from marginalized groups for planning more inclusive cities.

Resilience and social cohesion through the lens of residents in a Kenyan informal settlement

“…Underpinning such epistemological questions was a fundamental concern about the dynamics between researchers and participants and the danger of imposing northern hemisphere interpretations onto complex social interactions and experiences in other parts of the world. Harris (2017) outlines how text based community based research exacerbates power relations between researchers and professionals, who devise the formats, and participants who often do not share the same terminology or experiences of the processes. These challenges are magnified when researchers and participants are from different socio-economic backgrounds and can be especially problematic when southern hemisphere locations and peoples are investigated by northern hemisphere academics.…”

Forestry Policy, Conservation Activities, and Ecosystem Services in the Remote Misuku Hills of Malawi

“…Participants use photography to represent their perspectives and lived experiences on a given topic and collectively discuss and analyze photos to inform community projects and advocate for their interests. Regarded as a tool to give agency to disempowered and marginalized groups in transforming their realities, Photovoice has been used in several disciplines, such as urban planning, education, public health, and sociology [44][45][46][47][48][49]. Because of the wide appeal of participatory photographic methods, it has been used with children, youth, and adults in various settings, ranging from youth programs, women's groups and organizations, to public health organizations [50][51][52][53].…”

“…The Photovoice methodology was applied to the ecosystem services assessment to overcome the limitations in articulation with text-based research and the asymmetrical power balance inherent in other research techniques. While allowing research participants to drive the process might frustrate the answering of a narrow set of questions and evidence is often not generalizable, it is abundantly useful for "building participant-driven practical theory about how environments impact everyday people" [49] (p. 400). The Photovoice variation used in this study combining a walking tour with picture taking replicates the method used in an informal settlement in Lusaka, Zambia [49].…”

“…While allowing research participants to drive the process might frustrate the answering of a narrow set of questions and evidence is often not generalizable, it is abundantly useful for "building participant-driven practical theory about how environments impact everyday people" [49] (p. 400). The Photovoice variation used in this study combining a walking tour with picture taking replicates the method used in an informal settlement in Lusaka, Zambia [49]. This method gives a significant level of control over to participants and roots the data in lived experiences.…”

Reflection/Commentary on a Past Article: “Photovoice as a Method for Revealing Community Perceptions of the Built and Social Environment”

“…A cursory search of our publication’s citations revealed consideration in such diverse fields as, for example, occupational therapy (e.g., Lal, Jarus, & Suto, 2012), intercultural relations (e.g., Peña-Purcell, Cutchen, & McCoy, 2017; Q. Wang & Hannes, 2014), health psychology (e.g., Haaken & O’Neill, 2014), visual studies (e.g., Nash, 2014), the intersection of youth studies and geography (e.g., Harris, 2017; Power, Norman, & Dupré, 2014; Walsh, Hewson, Shier, & Morales, 2014), disaster science (e.g., Schumann, Binder, & Greer, 2018), climate change research (e.g., Lemelin et al, 2015), communication research (e.g., Borron, 2013), the indigenization of photovoice (e.g., Goodman, Snyder, & Wilson, 2018; Lemelin et al, 2015; Thompson, Miller, & Cameron, 2016), and in several dissertations spanning disciplines from social sciences, the humanities, and public health. Our publication also earned mention in recent photovoice methods papers (e.g., see Murray & Nash, 2017; Simmonds, Roux, & Avest, 2015) and qualitative research methods textbooks (e.g., Castleden, Morgan, & Franks, 2016; Delgado, 2015; Hinds, 2017), including one authored by a seminal author in the field (see Thorne, 2016).…”