Participatory Photography: Interview with Jason Houston, Photographer

2/23/24
by
Amy Gambrill & Jason Houston

On January 25, the Environment & Sustainability Workgroup hosted an event on Collaborative Storytelling: Participatory Photography for Learning, Engagement, and Equity in Environment Programs. The following is the transcript of the interview conducted by former SID-US Environment & Sustainability Workgroup Co-Chair, Amy Gambrill, with photographer Jason Houston.


In 2023, USAID’s Biodiversity Division along with implementing partners worked with photographer Jason Houston to run a series of Participatory Photography workshops in the Philippines, Peru, and Madagascar engaging nearly 20 local photographers in sharing their experiences with and perspectives on biodiversity conservation. This SID-US Environment & Sustainability Workgroup event considered the importance of this approach, outlined the basic methodology, and shared some of the stories learned from the three workshops.

Amy Gambrill, former SID-US Environment & Sustainability Co-Chair and moderator for the event, sat down with Jason to ask additional audience questions that were not covered during the event.

Amy Gambrill (AG): Thank you so much for sitting down with me again to dive into participatory photography a bit more. It was fantastic to see your photos and hear about this important approach to storytelling and stakeholder engagement.

Jason Houston: (JH): Thanks for doing this. I’m glad we have a chance to follow up on some of the additional questions!

AG: How did you identify the participants in the community photography workshops? 

JH: The filter with these workshops was for people who have some experience with the biodiversity work happening in their communities over the years, so we started by having the local partners reach out to the community and identify a group of potential volunteers. Then, within that group, we were looking for all types of diversity—gender, age, official involvement or not, etc.—as well as people who were especially excited to do all this with us. It’s a commitment of time and emotional energy, and it always works better if the photographers are enthusiastic and also have their own reasons for wanting to do it.

AG: How did the workshop participants and their community react to seeing themselves and their photos on the projector screen or printed out for the first time? 

JH: Just like all of us, people love seeing themselves and their friends in photographs! But what’s different during the final slideshow and/or exhibition presentations than if it were my photographs of the community is that it comes from them. Not only does each photographer have a unique vision and way of seeing their world, but there’s pride, humor, insight, intimacy, and a history in what they see that will simply never show up in my photographs.

AG: You spoke about how the participants’ photo projects each carried a narrative and that you had to practice restraint to not impose your ideas about what a narrative entails. Can you speak more to the role of narrative and language in development and what the upsides and pitfalls of participatory photography are with regards to narrative and language?

JH: So often, as journalists or development and nonprofit organizations trying to tell our stories, we come with an agenda (there’s this issue affecting the community or there’s this work happening to address it, etc.), and the work we do when we visit is to find content to bring to life and fulfill those preconceived narratives. But with these workshops, we try to flip that process around, and rather than look to them to photograph things that fit OUR narratives, we start by simply encouraging them to photograph whatever is important to them. Then, in the editing and selection process, we discuss how the values that surface might align with or even redefine our outsider’s understanding. The goal is that the stories they ultimately share are THEIR stories. These don’t necessarily replace our stories, but they can clarify things for us, and they should add layers and new perspectives to the conversations. And this can be challenging for programs that are set in their ways. I’ve seen organizations have to admit, for example, that there is more conflict between different interest groups within a community than they wanted to admit, or that someone’s true motivation is not protecting nature and wildlife but simply providing for their family. Listening to the communities rather than seeking confirmation of my assumptions makes me more honest as a journalist, and it’s my hope that this tool can also help accomplish more honest and nuanced understandings for the partner organizations as well.

AG: Were there any challenges encountered during the workshops? How did you navigate them to ensure a meaningful and respectful collaboration with the communities?

JH: Because these workshops are not about teaching photography and more about recognizing photography as a universal language that can provide insight into the participating photographers’ daily lives, the days are pretty unstructured. The photographers are encouraged to simply incorporate making photographs into their regular activities and do most of the photography on their own time. Not only can this be hard to track (to make sure we’re on track) but life can also just get in the way. But these workshops were only about a week each so even missing a day can significantly impact their experience, so sometimes it takes some creativity during the initial check-ins to find ways to help the photographers fully embrace and keep up with the process.

The other thing that is always a challenge is just language itself and the fact that we don’t always speak a common language. Because so much of this is about honoring self-expression, the community liaison’s (someone with connections to the community who also understands the workshop process and helps me as the facilitator navigate pretty much everything) and the translator’s roles are also super important. Sometimes breaking up the flow to translate on the spot can be disruptive or even intimidating and so I often have to rely on the liaison and translator to have meaningful conversations with the photographers about their work then fill me in on the details later. 

AG: How did you handle interactions with local organizations or government institutions when the content of participants’ photos wasn’t something these groups wanted to see?

JH: Thankfully, this is rare. Not because the photographers don’t make images that challenge our assumptions but because a fundamental part of wanting to host one of these workshops is to embrace the uncensored perspectives of the community and any hard conversations those might lead to. What usually comes up is more about context when the images are shared outside the actual workshop. It’s common in Amazonian communities that they keep wildlife as pets, for example, and they often photograph that relationship as an expression of their deep connections to the jungle ecosystem. But that can also appear misleading if it’s out of context since we obviously don’t want to advocate for harvesting wildlife as pets or for trade. Part of the consideration here is that the photographers are not professionals, but through my contacts or the organizations partnering in the workshops, there may be opportunities to use the images in more professional situations (like the presentations I gave for SID-US and USAID recently or for publication to celebrate the workshops). We have an obligation to both the photographers and the audience to make sure that if the photographs are shared outside the community, they also include the appropriate background and context.

AG: What are the main obstacles (if any) to incorporating participatory photography as a standard in environmental conservation? 

JH: I think participatory photography is just another (and a really effective) tool for engaging with, listening to, and learning from the communities we’re working with. It recognizes their power and sovereignty to tell their own stories in the ways they want to tell them, including them in conversations they’re not always invited to be a part of. And like any of our standard tools, it requires certain skills if it’s going to be used properly. Part of the reason it can work so well is because of the global ubiquity of photography. People are used to photographing their lives and the technical barriers are very low, so on one hand it’s familiar and feels easy to use as a way to talk about their lives. But another reason it can work so well is because photography is so powerful. It communicates quickly and across languages and cultures, and it implies a level of factual truth. And with this power comes responsibility. We’re inserting this tool into their lives and those of their communities and in a context that can have more impact than it might otherwise. It’s essential that whoever is running a workshop like this not only has the technical skills (basic photography and photo editing) but also has some awareness of the history of photography and enough visual literacy to help everyone involved navigate any moral or ethical considerations that might come up.

AG: Given the success of these workshops, where do you see the future of participatory storytelling in the context of environmental and sustainability narratives? 

JH: We’ve now run workshops in almost a dozen countries engaging several hundred local photographers, and each workshop is different and each one surprises me with new ways the communities choose to engage. So, I see two ways to answer this. The first is just that I believe it’s a powerful and effective tool for addressing issues around authorship and representation leading us to more equitable storytelling about the good work we’re all doing in the world and why. In that context, I hope more people will consider it as part of their approach.

My second answer is a little bigger picture. Part of my thinking for how these workshops are run comes from recognizing universal trends in the accessibility of photography and visual communication over the last 20-plus years, from the internet to digital cameras to blogs and social media to smartphones and whatever’s next. As much as I love working with the local photographers, there are systemic barriers to equity that must be addressed before we have equality. And correcting these barriers is part of what is behind these workshops. But I hope that at some point we might not need to ‘facilitate’ workshops like these. The concept of ‘participatory’ (which can imply we’re inviting them to participate in something we control) could then break down if we become willing to simply step back and make space where we all listen to and learn from each other as equals.

AG: Thanks so much, Jason. I have really enjoyed learning from you.

 

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