1994/06/01 by Caroline Wang, Mary Ann Burris
Health Professions · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Art #Children's Rights and Participation #Community Health and Development #Consciousness #Critical consciousness #Empowerment #Grassroots #Law #Literature #Novella #Participatory Visual Research Methods #Pedagogy #Political science #Politics #Power (physics) #Psychology #Sociology #Solidarity
paper · doi:10.1177/109019819402100204
crossref issued 1994/06/01 · crossref published 1994/06/01 · crossref published-online 1994/06/01 · crossref published-print 1994/06/01 · openalex publication_date 1994/06/01 · crossref created 2007/02/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref deposited 2026/04/29 · crossref indexed 2026/08/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Photo novella does not entrust cameras to health specialists, policymakers, or professional photographers, but puts them in the hands of children, rural women, grassroots workers, and other constituents with little access to those who make decisions over their lives. Promoting what Brazilian educator Paulo Freire has termed "education for critical consciousness," photo novella allows people to document and discuss their life conditions as they see them. This process of empowerment education also enables community members with little money, power, or status to communicate to policymakers where change must occur. This paper describes photo novella's underpinnings: empowerment education, feminist theory, and documentary photography. It draws on our experience implementing the process among 62 rural Chinese women, and shows that two major implications of photo novella are its contributions to changes in consciousness and informing policy.