Using Visual Methods to Capture Embedded Processes of Resilience for Youth across Cultures and Contexts

Abstract

Objectives:

We review the value of using visual data in a dialogue with youth, to reflect, explore and find language to better understand processes of resilience.

Methods:

The argument is demonstrated with examples from the Negotiating Resilience Project (NRP): an international study of 16 youth which uses video recording a day in the life of youth participants, photographs produced by youth, and reflective interviews with the youth about their visual data.

Results:

Three examples from the NRP are used to show the ways that visual methods can capture and elucidate previously hidden aspects of youth’s positive psychosocial development in stressful social ecologies.

Conclusion:

Incorporating images as research data can aid in understanding previously unarticulated constructions of youth resilience. When the researcher is reflexive about power dynamics and their role in co-constructing the research environment, visual methods have the potential to reduce power imbalances in the field, meaningfully engage youth in the research process, and help to overcome language barriers.

Since interest in child and youth resilience began over 50 years ago, researchers have questioned the role context and culture play in mental-health related processes and outcomes for youth living in environments that pose significant challenge to their psychosocial development (Ungar, 2008). The research, which has relied mostly on using quantitative methods to identify population-wide risk and protective factors among youth, has found aspects of resilience common across studies. However, these studies have also made a priori assumptions of the factors and processes studied, often reflecting dominant cultural groups’ understandings of mental health concepts (Kağitçibaşi, 2006). We still lack knowledge regarding contextually- and culturally-embedded processes of resilience relevant to marginalized youth living in non-western countries, and aboriginal and immigrant children living in the west (Ungar, 2008).

Qualitative methodologies and mixed methods research designs have helped to explore more contextually specific processes related to youth resilience, mostly through the use of interviews (Ungar, 2004). Though interviews are a well-established method for obtaining complex and heterogeneous understandings of resilience, they may unintentionally fail to understand youth’s unique accounts of coping by requiring youth to use words to explain their perceptions, even when they may not have the necessary vocabularies.

We use research from the Negotiating Resilience Project (NRP) to demonstrate the value of visual methods for studying young people’s positive psychosocial development in stressful social ecologies. The NRP is a unique study in four Canadian communities, as well as India, Thailand, China and South Africa, that uses two visual method techniques - auto-driven photo-elicitation and the videotaping of a “day in the life” of youth participants. The NRP seeks to understand resilience from youth whose marginalized voices have not, for the most part, been included in resilience research. The inclusion of reciprocity and reflexivity between researchers and participants in the design allows for shared contemplation of data and collaborative meaning generation. We show, using examples from the NRP, the benefits of visual methods for observation and elucidation of unarticulated processes associated with resilience for youth across cultures and contexts. Three serious issues that surface in research with vulnerable youth populations are addressed through the inclusion of visual methods. These include: power imbalances between the researcher and the participant; lack of youth participant engagement in the research process; and language barriers.

Researching Youth Resilience across Cultures and Contexts

The construct of resilience is built upon the recognition that an individual can achieve positive developmental outcomes despite exposure to risks deleterious enough to challenge those adaptive pathways (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000). Researchers have moved away from understanding resilience as resulting from internal characteristics alone, such as intelligence and temperament, to examining the relationships between protective factors believed to buffer threats to positive adaptation (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000; Rutter, 2006). However, the shortage of systematic research with marginalized youth living in highly stressful situations has resulted in theories of resilience, and in turn mental-health policies, that are heavily developed from normative ideas relating to children in North America and Europe (Boyden, 2003).

There is increasing recognition that across diverse cultures and contexts, there are varying ways that populations conceptualize and achieve resilience in perilous environments (Rutter, 2006; Ungar, 2004). In pilot research with over 1500 children worldwide, Ungar and his colleagues (2007) identified seven interdependent challenges integral to children’s narratives of resilience: 1) access to material resources; 2) relationships; 3) identity; 4) power and control; 5) cultural adherence; 6) social justice; and 7) cohesion. Children who successfully maneuver their way through each challenge, within the norms and socio-political constraints imposed on them by their communities, described themselves as resilient, as did their communities. Thus, resilience can be understood as an interaction between the person and their social and physical ecology.

Qualitative methodologies have been particularly instrumental in identifying mental-health related processes of youth in adverse circumstances. These findings are embedded in local context and based on the participants’ own understanding of their coping strategies. This is because qualitative research acknowledges and includes subjective (emic) experience in the research frame (Ungar, 2004), allowing the researcher to explore the how and why of dynamic processes (Johnston & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). According to Ungar (2004), qualitative research is ideal for use in studies of youth resilience because it permits the researcher to: discover unnamed processes; attend to the contextual specificity of health phenomena; increase the ‘volume’ of marginalized voices; produce thick enough descriptions of lives to allow for the transfer of findings across contexts; and challenge researcher standpoint bias that orients findings toward an adult-centric perspective. In other words, we can begin to see everyday experiences from youth’s eyes.

Yet designing qualitative research for use with diverse youth populations is not without its challenges. Researchers must take into account myriad issues, such as the child’s age level, language barriers, and power dynamics between the researcher and participants (Epstein et al., 2006). Though interviews are a reputable qualitative method for obtaining multiple conceptualizations of mental-health related processes, they may unintentionally guide participants’ descriptions of experiences by requiring youth to use words to articulate their perceptions. Their vocabularies, and the concepts available to children to describe their experience, are circumscribed by the limits of social discourse. Language barriers (the lack of words to describe experience) may inadvertently limit the depth to which certain topics can be explored, and may disregard non-verbal aspects of how meaning is communicated (Epstein et al., 2006). Interviews can accentuate adult authority, leading participants to believe there may be a “correct” or “best” answer (Blackbeard & Lindegger, 2007). Moreover, interview questions are often limited to subject areas the researcher considers important. This becomes an issue when working in unfamiliar or diverse contexts, where divergent and unexpected processes may underlie constructions of resilience. Though interviews may be developed through collaboration with local community advisors, and be culturally and contextually sensitive, what constitutes a positive solution to the challenges youth face may not hold the same meaning for youth as it does for adults.

Increasingly researchers working with youth are calling for research designs that include greater participation (Volpi, 2002; Whitmore & McKee, 2001) that help bridge potential language and power barriers between participants and researchers (Liebenberg, 2009). Visual methods that foster a process of reflection and articulation, potentially offer a solution to the methodological problems mentioned above, especially in investigations with marginalized youth. We argue that such visual methods are a viable research alternative for better capturing youths’ interactions as they vie for mental-health and resilience-promoting resources within their unique social ecologies.

The Methodological Value of Using Visual Approaches to Capture Embedded Processes of Resilience

Visual methods provide an alternative or complimentary approach for use in studies of resilience because they potentially address three common problems associated with using only interviews. These include: 1) power imbalances between the researcher and the participant; 2) youth participants’ lack of engagement in the research process; and 3) language barriers.

Disrupting power imbalances

When youth are invited to take their own photographs or direct their own videos, and then given the opportunity to explain their worlds and images as they understand them (Clark-Ibanez, 2007; Karlsson, 2001), the traditional power imbalance between “the researcher” and “researched” is somewhat disrupted. Collaboration and reflexivity between the researcher and participant become imperative to fully understand the meaning behind the youth’s images. The authority over the definition of resilience as it emerges from the images no longer lies with the researcher (Ball & Smith, 1992; Harper, 2002). This approach is invaluable in situations where power imbalances are amplified due to the research context, such as that of a marginalized community (Daniels, 2003; Liebenberg, 2009). Asking youth to direct the creation of their own images ensures that the research remains relevant to the youth (Blackbeard & Lindegger, 2007; Clark-Ibanez, 2007), and affords youth the power to decide which parts of their lives to include or exclude from the research record (Epstein et al., 2006; Karlsson, 2001).

Encouraging youth engagement in the research process

Visual methods have the potential to increase youth engagement in the research process. The process of making images compels youth to consider why they are capturing that moment on film, prompting them to think about their lives (Liebenberg, 2009; Stanzak, 2007). Contemplation of their images with the researcher may prompt reflections from the youth that would not arise during a traditional interview (Karlsson, 2001; Young & Barrett, 2001), and that may not have surfaced even while making the images. Youth may feel more ownership over their data, consequently resulting in the increased validity of research findings. By engaging youth in dialogue about the factors that protect them in times of struggle, we begin to focus on youth’s strengths and valuable insights (Clark-Ibanez, 2007; Young & Barrett, 2001).

Addressing the language barriers associated with traditional interviews

Liebenberg (2009) suggests that because youth are encouraged to think about why it is they are taking a particular photograph, participants are later enabled to articulate their experiences and perceptions during the interview process, by using the image as a reminder. Even when youth cannot express themselves verbally, images themselves are research data and may help to communicate information visually. Youth are better able to set the linguistic level in discussions about their images, and may even feel less “on the spot” because there is a material go-between to reflect upon (Clark-Ibanez, 2007; Epstein et al., 2006).

Using visual methods will not inherently reduce power imbalances between researchers and participants, encourage youth engagement, or mitigate language barriers. It is only when visual methods are combined with sensitive reflection by the researcher about their pronounced role in co-constructing the research environment, along with the intent of shifting power to the participant, that previously silenced perspectives can be made audible (Packard, 2008). Each choice we make, from the technologies used to capture information to our interactions with participants and the ways we present the data, affects what we say about the social phenomenon of interest, and of the communities we work with (Daniels, 2003). Fortunately, it is the implementation of more equitable research methods that will allow researchers to learn previously unspoken and unrecognized knowledge (Packard, 2008) about resilience from youth.

Indeed, perhaps most relevant to this paper is the possibility that visual methods can elicit understandings of resilience that fail to emerge using more traditional methods, such as qualitative interviews or quantitative surveys. Photographic and video cameras can take us behind otherwise closed doors (Clark-Ibanez, 2007; Karlsson, 2001; Young & Barrett, 2001), into the personal lives of young people. We are able to see day-to-day interactions, the people youth engage with, and which resources are available or lacking, that may not otherwise be accessed in a traditional interview setting. This opens the possibility of capturing unanticipated or previously unarticulated processes that reflect “hidden” contextually and culturally specific aspects of resilience (Ungar, 2004). As Liebenberg (2009, p.445) concludes, “Because images are argued to be visual representations of subjective experiences, rather than objective statements, the exploration of visual meanings not only helps us ‘see’, but also asks us to slow down and consider, to think about what it is we are seeing and what it is we don’t see, and why” (emphasis in original). Images allow the researcher to explore issues with research participants that we would not have contemplated otherwise (Stanzack, 2007), illuminating complex processes integral to youth’s coping in dangerous environments.

We provide here a brief description of the NRP methodology followed by some examples from that study to illustrate the advantages of using visual methods to study resilience.

The NRP Methodology

The NRP uses visual methods - including photo-elicitation and the videotaping of a day in the life of participants – as well as interviews and reciprocity between researchers and participants, to understand the processes associated with resilience for youth in five countries. One boy and one girl, aged 13-to-16 years old, at each of four Canadian sites (Halifax, Montreal, Saskatoon, and Vancouver) and four international sites (India, China, Thailand, and South Africa), were nominated to the project by youth advocates in their communities. The youth were suggested to the project because they were seen as being resilient despite the multiple adversities they face, including displacement, poverty, racism, and other social and economic risks.

Preliminary interview

Following the consent process, youth participants took part in a private, semi-structured interview focused on understanding the adversities faced by the youth participants and their perspectives and experiences of resilience.

Photo-elicitation

At the interviews, youth were provided with a disposable camera and asked to take photographs of anything they wished to talk about, including obstacles to personal development, mental and physical health resources, social supports, and how they navigate their way through the challenges they face. Once images had been developed they were included in the study as research data, as well as used as prompts in further interviews with participants.

Day in the life video recording

In the day in the life procedure (adapted from Gillen et al., 2006) we filmed 8 to 12 hours of a youth participant’s day. One researcher used a digital camcorder to film the day, while another researcher took observation notes. In all instances, the site researchers who recorded the field notes were familiar with the local context, allowing them to pick up on subtleties that may otherwise have been missed.

Creation of the compilation day in the life video DVD

At least two local and two distal researchers independently viewed the full days of video footage for each youth, making selections of the day’s events that seemed to represent the range of activities and quality of interactions the youth engaged in. Researchers chose 5–6 video scenes of approximately five minutes in length they were interested in hearing more about from the youth, or those which might be interpreted as contributing to each youth’s ability to cope well with adversity.

Reflection periods

Periods of reflection between our team members and between the researchers and participants ensured our analyses accounted for specific contexts and cultures, and helped to reconcile issues that arose when using visual methods across diverse contexts. These reflection periods helped us to understand youths’ interpretations of their images. Through open-ended questions, youth were asked to reflect on each video clip, and were questioned whether they believed other clips should have been chosen for inclusion in the compilation. None of the participants indicated that they would have selected alternate clips for their video compilation. Next, the youth was shown the photographic images he or she had produced. Through reflective discussions with youth about the visual data, we were better able to understand the content (the what), the purpose (the who, when and how) and the youth’s interpretation (the why) (Pink, 2001). Finally, the compilation video of a youth from another research site was shown to the youth for comment.

Data analysis

The NRP data analysis is currently underway. We are examining the data by drawing on a combination of analysis methods, including grounded theory (Charmaz, 2000) and postmodern discourse analysis (Gill, 2000), with emphasis on generating substantive theory. Links are being drawn between data sources for each youth. Data is being analyzed for processes and patterns occurring across and within sites. Youth interpretations of their data are being taken into account; however, we are also making reference to the processes participants seem to take for granted, leave unstated or seem unaware of.

The examples provided in the results section below were not developed from the data analysis procedure described above. They were selected from the youth participants’ reflection interviews, based on the strength of each case to illustrate the ways in which visual methods can capture embedded processes of resilience for youth.

Results

Exemplars from the NRP

We provide below three examples from the NRP, of instances where the use of visual methods aided in the observation and understanding of previously unarticulated aspects of youth’s experiences of resilience. All names are pseudonyms.

Example 1:

The researcher learns about a culturally-embedded aspect of resilience through the use of photo-elicitation:

Marie is a 15-year-old youth living in Saskatoon who considers herself Mohawk First Nations. She moved to the city from a nearby First Nations reserve with her mother and three brothers when she was in grade three. Marie is dealing with a number of challenges, including systemic racism and repeated harassment by the police. Marie’s self-identified strengths include “getting involved in stuff,” such as competitive sports and dance, her spirituality and identity as Mohawk First Nations, and her strong connection to family. One photo that Marie took showed a young Aboriginal man with long hair. Marie told us:

Marie: This is Freddie with his long hair. I took a picture of his long hair, because when you keep your long hair it is your spirit, I guess you can say. And Freddie has had his hair for a really long time so there is like memories embedded in his hair and so that is why we grow long hair. My brother Peter John he cut off his hair because he wanted to start a new life with his girlfriend, and forget about his past cause he had a really hard past-so he cut his hair. And Freddie still has his hair and Jake cut his hair. So I wanted to take a picture of that.

Interviewer: And you have your hair. Your hair is very long.

Marie: Yeah. I cut it a lot.

We learn here from Marie that cutting one’s hair has cultural meaning tied to the ability to cope with significant life disruptions and hardships. It is a visual reminder of one’s life experiences, and provides the opportunity for repeated self-renewal. By admitting that she has cut her hair a lot, Marie lets us know that she has had her own share of challenges to overcome.

Example 2:

The researcher and the youth collaboratively come to an understanding about a day in the life episode as positively contributing to his resilience:

Neil is a 14-year-old male living in a neighborhood known for shootings and stabbings, next to an increasingly gentrified urban area of Atlantic Canada. Neil recently moved out of his mother’s house to live with his father (his parents are divorced yet friendly with one another) which required Neil to adjust to new house rules and responsibilities. During the day in the life video recording, Neil spent much of his day with his friends walking in a well-off neighborhood. At one point, two of the boys cross the street, while the other boys remain on the other side. The friends begin playing a game they call “imaginary football” (pretending to throw an imaginary football over the cars driving between them), “imaginary skipping rope” (pretending they have a giant skipping rope spanning the road, with one youth pretending to “jump” over the rope), and so on. The youths’ roadside games have the effect of causing the drivers of the cars to occasionally slow down, honk their horns, or look slightly bemused, which in turn brings the youth some fun, and at times embarrassment. As Neil viewed the video clips, he seemed surprised that we included these episodes where he and his friends engaged in small risk-taking activities. He told us, “Yeah, to be honest we actually do kind of do that a lot. Like play around with cars, it’s fun. Never anything bad. Just watch them slow down, then you kind of laugh and they get mad.”

Though Neil did not mention it without our prompting, we noted the invisibility of adult involvement during his day. We questioned Neil about places for youth to go for recreation in the neighbourhood. Neil told us, “The only place we can really like chill is our friends’ houses. The other place would have to be the mall which we wouldn’t be allowed at.” He continued, “[It doesn’t bother us] because we’re so used to it… But I guess at first somehow it wouldn’t have been [usual]. Because I know down at like the [public recreational park] or something like that there’s a place where you can go play basketball at some sort of time or something like that. I heard it, but other than that I don’t know.” The content on Neil’s video compilation, and Neil’s reflections on his activities, tell us as much about Neil’s community and its support structures as it does about him. Rather than viewing Neil’s risk-taking as “deviant”, we began to understand that his experimentation with risk afforded Neil experiences of adventure, power, rites of passage, and bonding with his friends in a context that provides very little formal space for this.

Example 3:

The youth learns something new about their own perception of “growing up well” after viewing another youth’s day in the life compilation video:

Nu Dang, a 15-year-old young woman whose family is from the Shan tribal group, was displaced from their home in Burma. Nu Dang now lives in a rented room with her mother and younger sister. Her father passed away in 2006. Nu Dang’s mother works long hours as a cleaning maid, so Nu Dang and her sister usually buy food outside of the home on their own. After viewing and reflecting upon her own photographs and video compilation, Nu Dang was given the Vancouver female’s video compilation to watch and comment upon. The youth depicted in the video is 14-year-old Idzel who lives with her extended family in Vancouver, Canada. Idzel’s family are Mexican refugee claimants to Canada. During one scene, Idzel’s mother brushes Idzel’s hair as they talk. Nu Dang remarked, “I have never had this; I am envious when I see this. They take good care of their children. Not like us, we are rather neglected.” Watching the video, she compares her situation to other youth, and realizes important things about her own ability to cope. She comments, “Even if their [other youth] parents don’t have time, there may be grandmother, aunts, uncle, who cooks for them. But I don’t have anyone and have to fend for myself.” She is prompted to reflect more deeply about her own life, and as a result, speaks openly about the adult roles she has taken on to contribute to her family’s welfare. She explains that these experiences have helped her to become more independent, to be able to adapt to new challenges, and access the physical resources required to survive in her high-risk neighborhood.

Discussion

These examples show that visual methods can bring to light new understandings of youth resilience. The photographs, day in the life videos and the youth’s reflections about their images are each important data sources; however, as Packard (2008) explains, it is the ability to examine both the image content and the motivations behind making a particular image that results in a sum greater than its constituent parts. In each example provided above, it was the reciprocity between participants and researchers during the interpretation of their images that led us to understand culturally-embedded pathways to youth resilience. Designing research where the goal is power transference to youth using visual methods is an analytical strategy, a way to produce information that would not otherwise be gained, and a first step in conducting more ethical research (Packard, 2008). In the NRP, youth were given the opportunity to decide how to portray their lives and perspectives, resulting in increased engagement and a shift in power from the researcher to the participant. For example, when Marie used a photograph to show the researcher a culturally-embedded coping response, she focused on what was important to her. By doing so, she revealed information that was beyond the researcher’s experience, that was not evident by viewing the image alone, and that most likely would not be disclosed in a traditional interview setting. Likewise, when the day in the life video stimulated a discussion between the researcher and Neil, it allowed them to co-construct an understanding of risk-taking events as potentially positive to Neil’s psychosocial development. This collaboration challenged adult-centric perspectives of what resilience means, and also defied the youth’s perceptions of how an adult would interpret his risk-taking behaviours. In the context of NRP methodology, the reflection process becomes a way to explore the youth’s images and perspectives, as well as the impact of the visual methods, the researcher-participant relationship, and the interactions produced by those activities (Lomax & Casey, 1998).

Conclusion

Visual methods allow us to capture culturally relevant ways in which young people perform as social actors within their environments. Using video-based methods in particular, we can record even the smallest detail of situated social interaction and aspects of the youth’s social ecologies, and replay the moments for analysis (Lomax & Casey, 1998). Furthermore, the photographs and video clips become mediums from which to speak about experiences unrelated to the image’s content. In other words, the focus of the analysis is on how the content is given meaning by participants (Gloor & Meier, 2000). This process allows us to balance participant reflection with the rigor of social science research (Prosser & Loxley, 2008), permitting us to reduce power imbalances in the field, meaningfully engage youth in the research process, help to overcome language barriers and generate theoretical constructs that account for culturally-embedded processes of resilience.