Literacy and Photography as Tools to Propel Stories of Self-Leadership and Change

Introduction

In pursuit of social justice, various researchers from the field of education, leadership and humanities have attempted to find ways to support and advance different communities who are on the fringe of society. Most of them tackle this issue with the approach of banking education, where the educator provides information with the hope of enriching community members. In other cases, the idea is to advance the community by providing existing and formal leaders with better leadership skills.

We decided to approach this issue in a different way. Rather than providing information or focusing on existing or formal leaders, we suggested seeking leaders within the community by using self reflection, and critical thinking as the basis for building leadership skills. Our approach was driven by personal stories of the people we worked with and it focused on two basic notions, (i) that personal stories, as varied as they may be, are a medium to facilitate an inherent growth and change within story tellers, and (ii) that these stories can then be used more broadly to change mindsets and expand the collective narrative of communities. Specifically, the idea is to facilitate an active way of knowing and learning through inquiry-based practice. While doing so, we must create spaces where learning is dynamic and could open up the possibility of the emergence of leaders from within the group. It is important to note that our approach encourages the development of critical leaders and thinkers within the community who will foster authentic change, and it is not limited to designated or formal leaders.

This chapter describes our year-long workshop with undergraduate first-generation students from underserved urban communities at a public college in New York. The workshop integrated photography and literacy in creating an imaginative space where students would develop visual and critical literacy. The workshop included four separate but interrelated projects. Moving from the most personal outward into the community, these projects focused on: (i) unidentified self portrait, (ii) objects that are significant for the participants, (iii) the environment in which they live; and (iv) the community to which they belong. During the workshop participants produced photographic images and written narratives that reflected on their lives and their communities. The chapter tells the story behind the research and unravels the work process with the participants throughout the workshop. It provides a theoretical background, the research method, and the process we used in the workshop. It ends with a discussion and a conclusion.

As part of the process, we introduce excerpts from two of the projects we worked on with the students (the first and the last projects), including the various interactions that occurred during the workshop, and the gradual building of a community. By doing so, we present a new model of learning, thinking and leadership that can be implemented in different settings. It is a different way of looking at the integration of art and literacy as multidimensional and as a vehicle for communal, social and personal change.