Photovoice as a tool for social change: building power through networks

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Photovoice as a tool for social change building
power through networks

• C.M. Scott, PhD
• University of Calgary Calgary Health Region
• September 30, 2005
• Social Innovation at Work for Families Conference

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Outline

• Introduction
• Project overview
• Where weve come from
• Where were going
• Links with social innovation
• Workshop overview
• Photovoice the process
• Social networks implications for social
  innovation

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Advocating for Women and a Fair Income
PhotoVoice as a Tool for Social Change

• C. M. Scott W. E. Thurston
• on behalf of
• The Women and a Fair Income Working Group and
  Photographers

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The little project that could!

• C. M. Scott W. E. Thurston
• on behalf of the
• Women and a Fair Income Working Group and
  Photographers

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Poverty

• Definition
• the condition of a human being who lacks the
  resources, means, choices and power necessary to
  acquire and maintain economic self-sufficiency
  and meaningful participation in society
• (Calgary Sustained Poverty Reduction Working
  Group, 2003)

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• StatsCans 2004 figures show more than 112,000
  Calgarians earn under 10 per hour. Of those,
  nearly half (54,600) are over the age of 25, and
  more than 34,000 of them are women.
• A single parent with one child would need to work
  close to 80 hours a week in order to earn 24,077
  the Low Income Cut-off for a two-person family
  in Calgary. This increases to almost 100 hours
  per week (29,944 per year) if the parent has two
  dependants.

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Who is living on a low income?

• In BC, Alberta, Ontario Québec
• 60 of minimum wage earners are adult
• 64 of all minimum wage earners are female
• (Goldberg Green, 1999)
• The majority of low income workers are
• Recent immigrants
• Single parents (primarily women)
• Aboriginal persons
• Persons with disabilities

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Where weve come from

• Watering Down the Milk
• Minimum wage in Alberta
• 5.90 is not enough (1998)
• Five years later (still 5.90 in 2003)
• Today (7.00)
• Women and A Fair Income Working Group
• Why Fair Income vs. Fair Wage

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Photovoice

• Three goals
• to enable people to record and reflect on
  community strengths and problems
• to promote dialogue about important issues
  through group discussion and photographs
• to engage policy makers (Wang, 1998)
• Website www.photovoice.com/index.html

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Big Metal Horse
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Welcome to Canada
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Powerlessness
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I cant move
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Two weeks to go
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Where we are now.

• Individual
• Group
• Community local, provincial, national
• www.fp.ucalgary.ca/wafi

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Workshop Overview

• Introductions
• Power, poverty and the little project that could!
• Collaboration common aims
• Group exercise common aims
• Social networks social capital structures
  that (can) build capacity
• Group Exercise mapping social networks
• Discussion

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Acknowledgements

• Women and A Fair Income Working Group Members
• Current Joan Farkas, Susan Gillies, Fran
  Guindon, Beryl Kootenay, Lynda Laughlin, Donna
  McPhee, Maggie Pompeo, Cathie Scott, Billie
  Thurston, Erica Welsh
• Past Julie Black, Liza Lorrenzetti, Lillian
  Parent, Pam Parry, Pascal Ujuok, Patricia
  Vanbeselaere
• Our Sponsors and Collaborators

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Final words

• Im just blown away by this. We are all poor and
  the public probably defines us all as pretty well
  the same and after looking at these pictures I
  know that were nothing the same. We all start
  from this place of poverty, but our different
  frames of reference Completely different,
  completely different perspective from one person
  to the other.
• This project says, take a look at us. Were here.
  This is our reality. You cant ignore us anymore.
• This project reinforced the idea that a few
  people can come together and make a difference.
  And if we didnt change the world we made a
  difference in each others lives.