Critical and Creative Thinking and Photovoice: Strategies for Strengthening Participation and Inclusion

Researchers, nonprofit organizations, and others have long used photovoice as a participatory action research method with vulnerable groups to depict, reflect on, and describe their realities, and advocate for change. Paulo Freire, whose scholarship is a foundation of photovoice, encouraged critical thinking in a popular education process to understand "the 'why' of things and facts." Creative thinking, a complementary concept that emerged in the field of education in the 1990s, involves, at its core, development, implementation, and communication of multiple original ideas. We provide a model of critical and creative thinking as an integrated process that generates knowledge as participants complete four key photovoice steps: (1) answer questions with a camera, (2) communicate in the group, (3) observe commonalities, and (4) communicate to power. We argue that each step involves teachable skills and provide practical, low-tech strategies that photovoice facilitators can use to enhance critical and creative thinking by any participant who finds it challenging to complete the four steps. Bringing a critical and creative thinking process to photovoice facilitation grounds the method in its education roots. It can enhance participation and inclusion of any vulnerable group, including people with cognitive and communication disorders due to acquired brain injury, mental illness, or substance use disorder for example. We suggest that use of the suggested strategies will result in an authentic, meaningful process that helps equalize power relationships, respects individuals as experts on their own lives, and increases the potential for data that prompt action.