Applying the Culture-Centered Approach to visual storytelling methods

Visual and digital storytelling methods can reposition research participants as coproducers of knowledge, foster engagement and collaboration with marginalized peoples, and offer greater depth of self-expression. However, these methods are constituted in complex terrains of power. Without continual attenuation to power imbalances, the methods will contribute to the silencing and erasure of marginalized communities. This study outlines how reflexivity as a methodological tool and part of the Cultured-Centered Approach can enable the interrogation of terrains of power, allowing for the continual opening of democratic possibilities and community ownership of visual and digital storytelling infrastructures. Excerpts from the “Poverty Is Not Our Future” campaign illustrate the argument. The campaign's cocreated audio-visual advertisements communicate everyday stories of poverty among residents living in a poor suburban site in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, and serve as a visual narrative of resistance to dominant structures. This study contributes to critical theorizing of culture and communication and the coconstruction of visual stories.