Rural youth and emotional geographies: How photovoice and words-alone methods tell different stories of place

Power, Nicole Gerarda and Norman, Moss E. and Dupré, Kathryne (2014) Rural youth and emotional geographies: How photovoice and words-alone methods tell different stories of place. Journal of Youth Studies, 17 (8). pp. 1114-1129. ISSN 1469-9680

[English] PDF (The version available in this research repository is a postprint. It has the same peer-reviewed content as the published version, but lacks publisher layout and branding.) - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (434kB)

Abstract

In this paper we discuss how photovoice and words-alone methods used in a study with young people living in communities on the west coast of Newfoundland, Canada helped tell different stories of rurality. Instead of the dominant narrative of rural decline in the focus groups and interviews with youth, through photovoice young people talked more positively about their home places. Drawing on recent work on emotional geographies and combining realist and constructionist frameworks, we argue that the photographs represent culturally accepted and appropriate ways of thinking, talking and feeling about place, and that these shared affective practices provide a sense of community and continuity in a context of uncertainty in fisheries communities. It is our contention that such shared practices offer a strategy to deal with, indeed to heal, the damaging impact of the near extinction of fisheries stocks by maintaining a stable sense of self and place.

Actions (login required)

View Item