The Center for Public Policy and Administration is pleased to host a book launch party to celebrate the publication of Participatory Visual and Digital Methods, by Associate Professor Krista Harper (anthropology and public policy) and Assistant Professor Aline Gubrium (public health). The event will take place on Wednesday, April 17 at 5 p.m. in the Gordon Hall Atrium.
Participatory Visual and Digital Methods is Harper’s second book. In it, she and Gubrium describe how to conduct an ethnographic study that engages subjects by using visual and digital methodologies. This new volume shows how technologies such as PhotoVoice, digital storytelling, geographic information systems, digital archives, and film and video can dramatically change the traditional relationship between academic researchers and the community. Harper and Gubrium argue that by using participatory technology and methods, the research process can be more democratic, inclusive and visually appealing.
Harper is an ethnographer, exploring issues related to the cultural politics of the environment, cities and food systems. She has led projects using participatory digital research methods to study environmental issues in a Hungarian Roma neighborhood, school food programs with youth in western Massachusetts, and civic organizations working on urban gardens and heritage preservation both nationally and globally. Harper is currently co-directing a project funded by the National Science Foundation titled Cultural Heritage in European Societies and Spaces. Her previous book, Wild Capitalism: Environmental Activists and Post-socialist Political Ecology in Hungary, explores environmental issues in 21st century Europe.
Gubrium uses participatory, digital visual and narrative research methods to study the sexual and reproductive health knowledge and decision-making of marginalized women and youth. She uses digital storytelling to engage research participants — including African-American women living in a southern rural community and Latino/a youth from Holyoke — in reflecting on sexuality, reproductive health and related aspects of lived experience.
CPPA is the hub for interdisciplinary public policy research, teaching and engagement at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Its program is the 2011 recipient of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration’s Social Equity Award, created to honor a public administration, affairs or policy program with a comprehensive approach to integrating social equity into its academic and practical work.