Medical Anthropology Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness
ISSN: 0145-9740 (Print) 1545-5882 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gmea20
Images of Place: Visuals from Migrant Women Sex Workers in South Africa Elsa Oliveira & Jo Vearey To cite this article: Elsa Oliveira & Jo Vearey (2015) Images of Place: Visuals from Migrant Women Sex Workers in South Africa, Medical Anthropology, 34:4, 305-318, DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2015.1036263 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2015.1036263
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Date: 11 November 2015, At: 06:53
Medical Anthropology, 34: 305–318, 2015 Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0145-9740 print/1545-5882 online DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2015.1036263
Images of Place: Visuals from Migrant Women Sex Workers in South Africa Downloaded by [Chinese University of Hong Kong] at 06:53 11 November 2015
Elsa Oliveira and Jo Vearey African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Many migrants in inner-city Johannesburg survive through unconventional and sometimes criminalized livelihood activities. In this article, we draw on data from a study that applied a participatory visual methodology to work with migrant women who sell sex, and explored the suitability of this approach as a way to engage with a presumed ‘hard to reach’ urban population. The lived experiences of migrant women sex workers were documented by combining participatory visual methods with a more traditional ethnographic approach, and this approach led us to new ways of seeing their worlds. This methodological approach raises important considerations for working with marginalized and criminalized urban groups. Keywords migration, participation, sex work, South Africa, visual methodologies
Migration is a global phenomenon and while some population movement is forced—resulting from wars, political conflict, and natural disasters—contemporary migration is predominantly associated with the search for improved livelihoods in urban areas. The 2011 United Nations World Urbanization Prospects Report projects that 60% of the global population will live in urban areas by the year 2030; 93% of this urban growth is estimated to take place in developing countries with approximately 80% of urban growth occurring in Asia and Africa (United Nations Population Fund 2007). Recent census data indicates that the majority of migration in South Africa is internal, with individuals moving from one province to another in search of work opportunities. In line with global trends, approximately 3.3% of the South African population is comprised of cross-border migrants (StatsSA 2012). South Africa has urbanized at a faster rate than neighboring countries, and more than 60% of the population now resides in urban areas (Kok and Collinson 2006). This illustrates the importance of understanding and responding to ELSA OLIVEIRA is a PhD student at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS). Her PhD work aims to reflect on the use of ‘creative methodologies’ approaches to explore the lived experiences of migrant sex workers in three Provinces in South Africa. JO VEAREY has a PhD in urban health, and is interested in responses to migration and health to achieve urban equity and social justice. Address correspondence to Elsa Oliveira, African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected] Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandf.com/gmea.
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contemporary urban health and development challenges. Johannesburg—located in the Gauteng Province and often referred to as a “city of migrants”—is the most migrant dense and economically active city in South Africa. An estimated 35% of the population are internal migrants from other areas of South Africa; approximately 7% were born in another country (StatsSA 2012). Many urban migrants, especially those without documentation, engage in informal livelihood strategies to support themselves and their dependents ‘back home.’ Informal sector employment is more accessible than that in the formal sector (Richter et al. 2012), but it is typically omitted from research and overlooked in international and local laws, policy, and programs (Vearey, Nunez et al. 2011). Sex work is one such area for income generation (e.g., see Agustin 2005; Andrijasevic 2010; Boyd 1989; Vearey, Oliveira et al. 2011; Richter et al. 2008). Although it provides an important livelihood strategy for many migrants and nonmigrants, all aspects of sex work are criminalized in South Africa (UNAIDS 2009), and foreign-born migrants involved in sex work experience additional challenges associated with their migration status (Agustin 2005; Fick 2006; Gould and Fick 2008; Richter 2008). This results in high levels of structural and direct violence, including fear and experience of xenophobic violence, rape and brutality by police and clients, and problems in accessing health care, accommodation, and basic services (Richter et al. 2012). Cross-border migrant sex workers, the majority from Zimbabwe, experience some advantages in certain aspects of their work compared to their internal and nonmigrant counterparts, such as having higher education levels, predominantly working parttime in indoor venues rather than on the streets, and earning more money per client. However, they report infrequent condom use, placing them at increased risk of acquiring HIV, and requiring improved access to health care services (Richter et al. 2012). In this article, we argue the importance of engaging with the lived experiences and ‘voices’ of urban poor migrants—including those engaged in unconventional, criminalized informal sector livelihood activities—in order to facilitate the development and implementation of appropriate policy, legal, and municipal responses. The study that we describe in this article, Working the City, was motivated by the need to capture the voices and gain insight into the daily lives of adult migrant women sex workers. They are, as we have already suggested, highly marginalized, stigmatized, and often hidden, and therefore omitted from urban health and development planning processes in the city. In working with these women, we gained a unique opportunity to provide them with a space to present their migration histories, trajectories into sex work, and daily-lived experiences as urban residents. To do this, we conducted a participatory photo project with 11 migrant sex workers who lived and worked in Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg. Johannesburg—now considered one of the world’s most unequal cities with a Gini coefficient of 0.75 (United Nations Habitat 2008)—was established when gold was discovered in the 1880s. Some 130 years later, the city is the economic hub of Sub-Saharan Africa. Hillbrow is the most densely populated suburb in South Africa, and is home to a diverse migrant community of nonnationals from across the continent and South Africans from other provinces. The suburb has a population of approximately 100,000 people; the exact numbers are elusive due to population mobility (StatsSA 2012). During Apartheid, central Johannesburg, including Hillbrow, was designated as a ‘whites only area’ under the Group Areas Act of 1950. In 1991, the Act was abolished, and by the mid-1990s, approximately 85% of Hillbrow’s population was black (Morris 2000). Lack of maintenance and investment, reflecting the inaction of both government and the private sector, led to a decaying
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infrastructure in Hillbrow, and the area rapidly became associated with crime, sex work, derelict buildings, and drugs (Simone 2004). Affordable accommodation in central Johannesburg is in high demand and buildings are overcrowded. Many lack basic (working) facilities, and may be managed by illegal landlords (Simone 2004). Throughout the participatory photography project, which we describe next, participants produced and shared images, captions, and reflections about their lives in Hillbrow. Their depictions of Hillbrow as a place of decay, violence, fear, and crime, but also as a place of work, family, life, and dreams, highlighted the contradictions and complexity of the suburb (see Figures 1–3).
PARTICIPATORY PHOTOGRAPHY The participatory-action research strategy of ‘photo-voice,’ which engages study participants to take photographs as a method of documentation and communication of a physical and social phenomenon, is perceived to offer novel insights and convey the ‘feel’ of specific events or locations often lost with research methods that rely on oral and/or written data (Rose 2012), and have the potential of “catalyzing personal and community change” (Wang, Yi, Tao, and Corovano 1998:75). This strategy for collecting and disseminating knowledge allows local people to get involved in identifying and assessing the strengths and concerns in their community, create dialogue, share knowledge, and develop a presentation(s) of their lived experiences (Hergenrather, Rhodes, and Bardhoshi 2009). The photo-voice process has three main goals: (1) to enable people to record and reflect the strengths and concerns of their community; (2) to promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important community issues through large and small group discussion of images; and (3) to reach policymakers (Wang and Burris 1997). Working the City developed out of a need to explore the lived experiences of migrant women sex workers who were ‘hard to reach,’ not only because of their potentially illegal migration
FIGURE 1 The passageways in Hillbrow are so dark, quiet, and dangerous. Lots of different crimes happen in or near passages and it is believed that this is where criminals hide themselves. (With permission from Sbu.)
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FIGURE 2 There are some very dirty places in Hillbrow with rubbish all over the streets. This is a serious health hazard for everyone living here, especially children. (With permission from Confidence.)
status or criminalized work but also because they resided in Hillbrow. The project was based on prior experience in conducting collaborative participatory photo projects with marginalized urban populations and the Johannesburg-based Market Photo Workshop (MPW; see Vearey 2010; Vearey, Oliveira et al. 2011). In these cases, we adapted a conventional photo-voice approach, and rather than providing participants with simple disposable cameras and limited instructions on how to use them, we provided technical training and support, including daily image and caption review sessions, so providing participants with usable skills. The methodology applied in Working the City reflected these experiences, and our interest in creating a visual output (exhibition) that could be used as a tool to engage a wide range of stakeholders, including public audiences, policymakers, city programmers, and academics. Working the City involved collaboration with the Sisonke Sex Worker Movement, the Market Photo Workshop (a photography training school in Johannesburg), and the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS, a research and teaching center at the University of the Witwatersrand). The Sisonke Sex Worker movement, established in 2003, expects that its members identify as sex workers and support the decriminalization1 (rather than legalization or criminalization) of sex work in South Africa. With the support of ACMS, Sisonke identified and invited 11 migrant women to participate in the study, of whom 6 were rural-urban internal migrants and 5 were cross-border migrants from Zimbabwe. All women were older than 18 years and sold sex in Hillbrow. All participants provided informed consent; the study received ethical approval from the University of the Witwatersrand Research Ethics Committee (nonmedical). Below, we use pseudonyms for all participants.
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FIGURE 3 This picture shows the business side of Hillbrow. There is so much that you can do to make a living. We are all gifted. Life is about choices. You can use whatever you are talented in to make a living. (With permission from Sku.)
The primary phase of the research was an 11-day participatory photography project held at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) in Hillbrow and at the MPW in the inner city suburb of Newtown. During this phase, participants were lent digital cameras and given journals, and were asked to record and reflect on the story or stories that they wanted to share with the public about their lives in Hillbrow. A professional photographer with experience working on photo-voice projects in South Africa facilitated the workshop, and participants were mentored by advanced photography students from the MPW. Days one to nine of the workshop were composed of five main sections: (1) sharing of images and discussion relating to content and quality, (2) basic photography skills, (3) photo shoots in Hillbrow, (4) image selection and editing, and (5) caption writing. Days 9, 10, and 11 were held at MPW, where the women finalized their selection of images and captions. During the workshop, participants were reminded daily that the photo project would culminate in a public exhibition, and that each participant would select eight of her own images, including a self-portrait, for this purpose. The selected photographs and accompanying captions offer a visual narrative of women’s lived experiences, ones that each woman wanted to portray and share. The project culminated in a month-long exhibition, Working the City: Experiences of Migrant Women in Inner City Johannesburg, held at the MPW Gallery in October 2010. The exhibition consisted of 12 posters: 1 poster for each participant composed of the 8 selected images and captions, and a poster introducing the project and partnership. Since the initial exhibition, Working the
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City has been displayed in various public exhibition spaces in Johannesburg, and at international conferences.2
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PHOTO-ELICITATION After the workshop, five research participants were randomly selected to participate in two one hour, in-depth, semistructured narrative interviews, with the photographs used as prompts, to gain further insight into their lives. The use of images in narrative interviews, ‘photo-elicitation,’ is a methodology used by visual researchers as an entry point to the views, perspectives, and experiences of participants (Mitchell 2008). Collier and Collier (1986) suggest that images invite people to take the lead in inquiry, making full use of their expertise. They also propose that “psychologically, the photographs on the table perform as a third party in the interview session” (1986:105), whereby researcher and study participant can explore the images together. During the photo-elicitation phase of the study, the researcher and first author of this article, Elsa Oliveira, opted only to use the final eight images selected by the participant for public exhibition, rather than the entire set of images taken during the project. Elsa relied on her field notes and participant journals to guide the process of further inquiry. Our perception was that all of the participants had omitted and/or changed some aspect of their stories and captions during the final editing phase of the project, and this was an area of particular interest to us. During one interview, Confidence explained why she chose the images, captions, and stories that she did for the final exhibition: I picked these because these tell a good story. They [the public] must just know that it isn’t easy for us. They must feel that we are humans and that we have families; that we are strong women, and that we know why we do what we do. We are too stressed and it is good for us to talk about our lives and take the stress away. It is too good for us to do this and this project let us talk about a lot of stress. But for me, I don’t want the whole world to know about all of my stress. My details are for me to share with whom I want and when I want.
Confidence’s feelings were shared by other participants and resonate with what O’Neil (2002:75) refers to as “ethno mimesis.” During her participatory action research (PAR) with sex workers, she stated that “at every phase of the PAR model there is a possibility for change . . . the mimetic re-telling of life stories in visual, artistic form can validate the experience of the interviewee . . . outcomes of participatory research can inform, educate, remind, challenge and empower both those involved and the audiences of the research outcomes” (2002:75). Sku, a cross-border migrant from Zimbabwe, offered us insight into the role of storytelling, self-representation, and public engagement, and explained her intentional rejection of the stigma and stereotypes that are often connected with sex work and migrants in Hillbrow. Throughout the workshops, Sku depicted Hillbrow as a dirty, unhealthy, and unsafe space, thus reflecting the prevailing negative discourses associated with migration and sex work in the city. However, the captions and narrative story that she produced for public consumption depicted Hillbrow as a place where hard working people with skills lived and worked, and as a place of pride. When asked about this shift, Sku stated:
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I don’t want others to keep making Hillbrow a bad place. If I tell them that Hillbrow is dirty and dangerous then it will confirm everything that they think about this space and us. Everyone believes that Hillbrow is full of criminals and sex workers and foreigners. They think that all foreigners are bad. But I am a sex worker, and a foreigner, and some people might think that I am a criminal too. But I live in Hillbrow so what would I be saying about my home and myself to the world if I said that Hillbrow was ugly? I am not dirty. I am a hard working mother who happens to sell sex. Yes, I believe that Hillbrow is not so safe but it’s also not a bad place.
Sku’s example offers us an important glimpse into the role of stigma in relation to occupied space, migration status, and work. Although she believes that Hillbrow is an undesirable location, her desire to depict home and work in a less grim light highlights a conscious negotiation of stigma and discrimination in the production of her final, public narrative. Bailey and colleagues (2002) argue that identities and space are fluid and relative to place and time. Goldstein (2002: 486) refers to the “performative encounter” as a process where research participants actively decide how they want to be represented and perceived in the world. As the editing process commenced, Sku made an intentional choice—a ‘performative encounter’—in how she wanted to be represented to the public, and how she wanted Hillbrow and migrants to be represented and consumed by others. The negotiation of stigma emerged as a central theme during the photo-elicitation interviews. Participants shed invaluable insights in relation to their complex lived experiences as migrant sex workers. Their internal dissonance regarding their involvement in the selling of sex, their acceptance and/or rejection of stereotypes, and their opinions regarding the movement for the decriminalization of sex work surfaced more clearly during the interviews than they had during the workshop. Although some participants spoke candidly about their involvement and experiences in sex work during the workshop, some made no reference at all to this. All of the participants in this study were members of Sisonke, and in theory were supportive of its calls for the decriminalization of sex work. Decriminalization was not a discussion topic, but when it was mentioned, participants appeared to agree on the merit of this as the appropriate direction for law reform. During interviews, however, some participants shared their concerns, ambivalence, confusion, and/or lack of support for decriminalization. Some participants explained that they were uncomfortable about sharing certain opinions and experiences with the group. Those who were ambivalent about their involvement in sex work, and/or did not support its decriminalization, felt that the group workshop space was not an appropriate place to discuss what could be interpreted as a controversial view, given their membership of and affiliation with Sisonke. Sbu, a cross-border migrant from Zimbabwe, chose not to discuss her involvement in sex work during the workshops, but during a photo-elicitation interview, she spoke openly about her work, the role of religion in her life, and her views on decriminalization, highlighting her confusion about the differences between the decriminalization and legalization of sex work: I do sell sex to make money but I don’t like to talk about this. The workshops were safe places to share experiences about our lives but I am a Christian and I can’t admit to being a sex worker. I only do this when I am at Sisonke meetings because it suits me. I want to be seen as a clean person, as someone who can be a role model. I am ashamed of my work and I wish to do something else. This is not a life. I am not proud of the work that I do. But, it feeds my family. I do not talk about my work so openly because one day I want to be a counsellor or a social worker and I am afraid that my work history will leave people thinking that I am not worth employing. Speaking about sex work would mean that I am proud of my work and there is a lot of pressure to be proud of this work from Sisonke
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but I am not sure that I want it to be decriminalized. Yes, everyone that I know that sells sex does it for their family to survive. We don’t do it because we want to be part of a movement or because we believe that it is a dream job. I don’t want my children to do this work and if it is legal then they might think that it is okay. It is not okay. It is dangerous and I feel afraid every day. If there was a way to make police stop harassing us, then that is good, but to make it legal is not good for anyone.
The workshop allowed participants to explore their lived experiences, receive support and understanding from their peers, learn a new skill, develop trust with the research team, and produce a body of work for public exhibition. The photo-elicitation phase of this study revealed additional insights into the lives and experiences of migrant sex workers that had not surfaced. Deeper insights into issues of migration, trajectories into sex work, experience of sex work—including beliefs and understandings relating to decriminalization, negotiations of public and private spaces, coping strategies, and general sentiments in relation to family, religion, health, and society—were explored with greater depth in interviews when confidentiality and privacy prevailed. This participatory photo project approach made visible the subtleties of space and revealed the complex experiences of the participants; the level of insight that this study offered would not have been possible using a different approach. The combination of a participatory photography workshop, ethnography, and photo-elicitation allowed us to engage with participants on multiple levels. Through this process, we gained a deeper understanding into the intricacy and intersectionality of negotiations, opinions, and experiences of migrant women who sell sex in Johannesburg. In addition, the images and captions generated by the women have, to some degree, positively impacted the ways in which sex workers are understood, viewed, and represented in South Africa. The Working the City images have been circulated widely in both academic and popular written pieces, challenging many stereotypes that people hold about migration, sex work, and sex workers. These images continue to be requested worldwide by organizations and individuals working in public health and migration, as feminists and in pro sex work circles. This has facilitated discussions and unveiled the lived experiences of migrant women sex workers in Johannesburg to a wider audience than may have been possible using a more traditional qualitative approach. Solicitation for the reproduction of images has highlighted the need for alternative depictions of sex work, and has made evident how a visual body of work can be used in various social forums—academic, political, and popular society—to promote social justice and health equity. The three most requested images and captions in Working the City (see Figures 4–6), have appeared in multiple publication outputs and have been used in exhibition announcements advertising the project.3
THE USE OF IMAGES IN RESEARCH AND BEYOND Over the last three decades, a growing body of interdisciplinary scholars have increased the number of image-based techniques applied in ethnographic and other qualitative research to enhance understandings of the human condition (e.g., Kihato 2010; Mitchell 2008; Rose 2012; Venables 2011), despite parallel debates about representation and privacy. As explained above, participants selected eight images for the final public exhibition and as publicly available materials, including online and in publications such as this. Many of the images that participants selected for this purpose clearly identified places of work, themselves, and people in their communities.
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FIGURE 4 This is my self-portrait. You cannot see my face but you can see the beautiful colors and contrast in the picture. This is who I am. (With Permission from Ana.)
FIGURE 5 Johannesburg is the land of opportunities for most people in Africa, although most of of them face difficulties—like I did—when coming to South Africa. (With permission from Lety.)
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FIGURE 6 I took this picture as I feel that most sex workers are being discriminated against and that some people feel ashamed that sex work exists. As if it is something out of this world. (With permission from Confidence.)
We worked with participants to edit their final exhibition images. This raises important ethical dilemmas when using a participatory photography approach with a marginalized community that engages in illegal activities. The participants were clear that the final selection of images would be shared in public spaces and, in line with our ethics approval, we engaged extensively with them on this. Drawing on this experience, we feel that future projects should pay increased attention to (1) ensuring participants understand fully what is entailed in a public exhibition and publicly available materials, and (2) in determining—with participants–what images are used for public consumption. Images that identify the participant, their work spaces, family, and friends should— with the involvement of participants—be edited out of materials produced for public consumption in order to minimize the risk to them. These methodologies raise new questions, particularly when, as in this case, the work is prepared for exhibition and the participants are undertaking work more complex than that associated with a traditional photo-voice approach: Are the products research or art? Do images tell the truth, or rather, what truths are told through visuals? How do we interpret the subjectivity of the visual? Many critics of visual methodologies question the nature of subjectivity of representation by the photographer/participant, but it is exactly this subjectivity that can unlock insights into the complexities and intersections of experiences, such as those of migrant women sex workers. Emmison and Smith question the “methodological adequacy” of visual research, and note that photographs “must always be considered a selective account of reality” (2000:40). But we question the adequacy of any and all methods, including the narrative questionnaire, the interview, the
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observation and the image. This requires us to interrogate the function of the image and its limitations. However, participant-generated photographs can be used to initiate and inspire further narrative inquiry, and they allow participants to generate and share their life stories in a visual, participant-led way, so defining to the researcher and the public what is relevant and important to them. The photographs can be shared with different sectors of the public, and they can be used as a tool to engage in public discussions. Obviously some studies lend themselves better to visual projects, and not all questions are best answered through the use of the visual. In Working the City, we believed that participatory photography and photo-elicitation were valuable approaches and methods on several levels. First, through involving participants in the data collection, the project facilitated access to the lived experiences of women who are assumed to be hard to reach and who are therefore regularly omitted both from research and urban policy processes. Second, the use of photographs enabled the participants and researchers to engage in an urban space often deemed ‘too dangerous’ and inaccessible to research. Third, by exercising full control, research participants were able to choose how they wanted to represent themselves to the research team and to (their interpretation of) the public, and by doing so, they created a body of work that continues to be utilized in various public spaces. It is important to highlight the positive feedback that we received from participants in the project. The process of testimony and public witness to experiences, the re-telling of stories, sharing knowledge and learning new skills can be transformative for participants (Beltran and Begun 2014; Hamber and Palmary 2009; O’Neil 2002). During the last day of the workshop, participants were brought together with the research team to discuss their involvement in the project. The few quotes below shed light on some of their perceptions and sentiments, although we are acutely aware that—as with the production of the photographs themselves and the multiple, shifting narratives that accompanied these images—participants were sharply aware of those to whom they were producing their reactions, namely, the project team: It is important to tell my story because it’s my life. This way I can think about my life and I can share my story with someone. Most of the days, people don’t want to hear what we have to say. We are usually invisible in the world but this project can make me feel visible (Mimi). When I am telling my story I am telling my story with my photo. Like when I was telling the story of how people are trying to rob me. I can show the picture of the place and inside me I know the story. I know that story. I can tell it or not but to me I am telling my story because I visited that memory and this is too good. I can let go of stress and pain now about that story. Now I know that I am ok. (Thembile) Sometimes things happen and they eat you your whole life. This project helped me to think about my story, my life and now I get to talk with you and it’s a good thing. People are too stressed because they never get to tell their story. They have this and that in their lives and it’s hard because no one knows these things. Me, I can tell you anything because I know that I will never run into you anywhere that I live and so it is safe for me. Because of this I am free to share my stories of pain and to dream because you know, we don’t share dreams. It’s like we don’t have them or we are foolish if we share them but I can share them with you. I can share them in my pictures too and not tell anyone what I really mean by that picture. The stories are mine to share or not. (Iketlang) I really enjoyed learning photography. It was too long since I learned something and this makes me feel better about me and my ability to learn new things. (Confidence)
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The photographs and captions elicited a wealth of information from the migrant women sex workers and allowed researchers, participants, and community members to engage in discussions on the key issues they presented. This method captured details that might have been overlooked by conducting interviews alone that elicited only narrative stories—the primary alternative to most researchers in working with publics in Hillbrow. There are, of course, several limitations to this approach and this study. Insufficient time was allocated for participants to reflect on their participation in the project. Some images and captions selected by participants for the final exhibition were not included for ethical reasons (such as an identifiable client in the photograph), the quality of the image, or the limited space on the posters (some participants expressed a desire to display additional photographs). An important limitation is related to the participatory nature of the project, and the power inequalities between the research team, the academic researchers, the professional photographs working at MPW, and the sex worker organization (Sisonke) on the one hand, and the study participants (migrant women sex workers) on the other. The research team developed the methodology and the workshop agenda; although input from the participants was solicited throughout the project, the decision to conduct a participatory photo project and develop a public exhibition was undertaken by the research team. Future projects are encouraged to solicit greater and more comprehensive involvement by the community and/or individuals being researched during the planning stages of a project to strengthen the participatory nature of the approach, and so acknowledge the inherent power imbalance that exists between different project constituents. This would allow for the needs and views of the participants to be included in the project design. Adequate time for reflection at the end of the project would allow further insight into the use of visual methodologies when researching marginalized and hidden urban populations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our appreciation goes to the 11 participants for generously sharing their stories with us. We would like to acknowledge our partnership with the Market Photo Workshop and Sisonke Sex Worker Movement and thank all involved for their commitment to the project. We warmly thank Lenore Manderson for her helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
FUNDING The research study presented in this article was part of the first author’s MA research project and funding was received from the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Market Photo Workshop. Production of this article is part of a series of articles from a British Academy funded workshop, for a special issue co-edited by Lenore Manderson and Emilie Venables.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL Supplementary data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.
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NOTES 1. Decriminalization relates to a recommended legal framework to protect the rights and well-being of sex workers. For more information, please see: http://www.sweat.org.za. 2. The project has been selected to participate in various initiatives in Johannesburg, including Goethe Institute’s Wide Angle, an event that focused on the use of participatory photography as a tool for social awareness and public practice. Working the City has been showcased at the Drama for Life’s Sex Actually Festival at Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa. In addition, the exhibition has been shown in several International Conferences including 1st International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference, Durban, South Africa: June, 2011; International Association of Forced Migration Studies, Kampala, Uganda: July 2011; 10th International Conference on Urban Health, Minas Gerais, Brazil: November 2011; 5th Annual HIV-In-Context Research Symposium: Urbanization, Inequality and HIV, Cape Town: March 2013; Sexuality and Policy Watch Training, Rio de Janeiro 2013; International Association for the Study of Sexuality Culture and Society, Buenos Aires, 2013. 3. Images have been used in various academic and popular publications, including Research for Sex Work Journal, Beijo da Rua, African Women’s Journal, Equal Treatment Magazine, Agenda Magazine, African Sex Worker Alliance, Sexual Health and Rights Initiative of South Africa, African Centre for Migration & Society, Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa Law Manual, and African Media and Diversity Journal. Images have also appeared in the following books: Cities and Photography by Jane Tormey and Not No Place by Dorthee Kreutzfeldlt and Bettina Malcommes.
REFERENCES Andrijasevic, R. 2010 Migration, Agency and Citizenship in Sex Trafficking. London: Palgrave McMillan. Agustin, L. 2005 Migrants in the mistress’s house: Other voices in the “trafficking” debate. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 12(1):96–117. Bailey, A., R. Wright, A. Mountz, and I. Miyares 2002 (Re)producing Salvadoran transnational geographies. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92(1):124–144. Beltran, R. and S. Begun 2014 ‘It is medicine’: Narratives of healing from the Aotearoa Digital Storytelling as Indigenous Media Project (ADSIMP). Psychology & Developing Societies 26(2):155–179. Boyd, M. 1989 Family and personal networks in international migration: Recent developments and new agendas. International Migration Review (Special Silver Anniversary Issue: International Migration on Assessment for the 90s) 23(3):638–670. Collier, J. and M. Collier 1986 Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Emmison, M. and P. Smith 2000 Researching the Visual: Images, Objects, Contexts and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry. London: Sage. Fick, N. 2006 Sex workers speak out: Policing and the sex industry. SA Crime Quarterly 15:13–18. Goldstein, D. 2002 Desconfianza and problems of representation in urban ethnography. Anthropological Quarterly 75(3):485–517. Gould, C. and N. Fick 2008 Selling Sex in Cape Town, Sex Work and Human Trafficking in a South African City. Pretoria, SA: Institute of Security Studies. Hamber, B. and I. Palmary 2009 Gender, memorialisation and symbolic reparations. In The Gender of Reparations: Unsettling Hierarchies wile Redressing Human Rights Violations. R. Rubio-Marin, ed. Pp. 324–380. Cape Town, SA: Cambridge University Press.
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Hergenrather, C. K., D. S. Rhodes, and G. Bardoshi 2009 Photo voice as a community-based participatory research: A qualitative review. American Journal of Health Behavior 33(6):686–698. Kihato, C. 2010 Now you see me, now you don’t: Methodologies and methods of the intersectices. In Gender and Migration: Feminist Interventions. Pp. 190–212. London: Zed Books. Kok, P. and M. Collinson 2006 Migration and Urbanization in South Africa. Pretoria, SA: Statistics South Africa. Mitchell, C. 2008 Getting the picture and changing the picture: Visual methodologies and education research in South Africa. South African Journal of Education 28:365–383. Morris, A. 2000 Bleakness and Light: Inner-city transition in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. The Journal of Modern African Studies 38(3):511–549. O’Neil, M. 2002 Renewed methodologies for social science research: Ethno-mimesis as performative praxis. The Sociological Review 50(1):69–88. Richter, M. 2008 Sex work, reform initiatives and HIV/AIDS in inner-city Johannesburg. African Journal of AIDS Research 7(3):323–333. Richter, M., M. Chersich, J. Vearey, B. Sartorius, M. Temmerman, and S. Luchters 2012 Migration status, work conditions and health utilization of female sex workers in three South African cities. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. 16(1):7–17. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10903012-9758-4. Rose, G. 2012 Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Methods. London: Sage. Simone A. 2004 People as infrastructure. Public Culture 16(3):407–429. Stats South Africa 2012 Quarterly Labour Force Survey: Quarter 3. http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statsdownload.asp?PPN=P02 11&SCH=5367. UNAIDS 2009 Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work. In UNAIDS. Geneva: UNAIDS. United Nations 2011 Population Division. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision. http://esa.un.org/unup/. United Nations Habitat 2008 State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009: Harmonious Cities. London: UN-HABITAT. United Nations Population Fund 2007 UN State of the World Population. New York: UNFPA. https://www.unfpa.org/public/publications/pid/408. Vearey, J. 2010 Hidden spaces and urban health: Exploring the tactics of rural migrants navigating the City of Gold. Urban Forum 21(1):37–53. Vearey, J., L. Nunez, M. Richter, and K. Moyo 2011 HIV prevention in the workplace and beyond: The importance of engaging with migration, urban livelihoods and the “informal economy” in South Africa. African Journal of AIDS Research (Suppl.):381–391. Vearey, J., E. Oliveira, T. Madzimure, and B. Ntini 2011 Working the city: Experiences of migrant women in inner-city Johannesburg. The Southern African Media and Diversity Journal 9:228–233. Venables, E. 2011 We are proud of this tower: Health and high-rises in inner-city Johannesburg. Etnofoor, Architecture 23(1):129–147. Wang, C. and M. A. Burris 1997 Photo voice: Concept, methodology and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behaviour 24:369–387. Wang, C. C., W. K. Yi, Z. W. Tao, and K. Carovano 1998 Photo voice as a participatory health promotion strategy. Health Promotion International 13(1):75–86.
ISSN: 0145-9740 (Print) 1545-5882 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gmea20
Images of Place: Visuals from Migrant Women Sex Workers in South Africa Elsa Oliveira & Jo Vearey To cite this article: Elsa Oliveira & Jo Vearey (2015) Images of Place: Visuals from Migrant Women Sex Workers in South Africa, Medical Anthropology, 34:4, 305-318, DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2015.1036263 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2015.1036263
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Medical Anthropology, 34: 305–318, 2015 Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0145-9740 print/1545-5882 online DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2015.1036263
Images of Place: Visuals from Migrant Women Sex Workers in South Africa Downloaded by [Chinese University of Hong Kong] at 06:53 11 November 2015
Elsa Oliveira and Jo Vearey African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Many migrants in inner-city Johannesburg survive through unconventional and sometimes criminalized livelihood activities. In this article, we draw on data from a study that applied a participatory visual methodology to work with migrant women who sell sex, and explored the suitability of this approach as a way to engage with a presumed ‘hard to reach’ urban population. The lived experiences of migrant women sex workers were documented by combining participatory visual methods with a more traditional ethnographic approach, and this approach led us to new ways of seeing their worlds. This methodological approach raises important considerations for working with marginalized and criminalized urban groups. Keywords migration, participation, sex work, South Africa, visual methodologies
Migration is a global phenomenon and while some population movement is forced—resulting from wars, political conflict, and natural disasters—contemporary migration is predominantly associated with the search for improved livelihoods in urban areas. The 2011 United Nations World Urbanization Prospects Report projects that 60% of the global population will live in urban areas by the year 2030; 93% of this urban growth is estimated to take place in developing countries with approximately 80% of urban growth occurring in Asia and Africa (United Nations Population Fund 2007). Recent census data indicates that the majority of migration in South Africa is internal, with individuals moving from one province to another in search of work opportunities. In line with global trends, approximately 3.3% of the South African population is comprised of cross-border migrants (StatsSA 2012). South Africa has urbanized at a faster rate than neighboring countries, and more than 60% of the population now resides in urban areas (Kok and Collinson 2006). This illustrates the importance of understanding and responding to ELSA OLIVEIRA is a PhD student at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS). Her PhD work aims to reflect on the use of ‘creative methodologies’ approaches to explore the lived experiences of migrant sex workers in three Provinces in South Africa. JO VEAREY has a PhD in urban health, and is interested in responses to migration and health to achieve urban equity and social justice. Address correspondence to Elsa Oliveira, African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected] Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandf.com/gmea.
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contemporary urban health and development challenges. Johannesburg—located in the Gauteng Province and often referred to as a “city of migrants”—is the most migrant dense and economically active city in South Africa. An estimated 35% of the population are internal migrants from other areas of South Africa; approximately 7% were born in another country (StatsSA 2012). Many urban migrants, especially those without documentation, engage in informal livelihood strategies to support themselves and their dependents ‘back home.’ Informal sector employment is more accessible than that in the formal sector (Richter et al. 2012), but it is typically omitted from research and overlooked in international and local laws, policy, and programs (Vearey, Nunez et al. 2011). Sex work is one such area for income generation (e.g., see Agustin 2005; Andrijasevic 2010; Boyd 1989; Vearey, Oliveira et al. 2011; Richter et al. 2008). Although it provides an important livelihood strategy for many migrants and nonmigrants, all aspects of sex work are criminalized in South Africa (UNAIDS 2009), and foreign-born migrants involved in sex work experience additional challenges associated with their migration status (Agustin 2005; Fick 2006; Gould and Fick 2008; Richter 2008). This results in high levels of structural and direct violence, including fear and experience of xenophobic violence, rape and brutality by police and clients, and problems in accessing health care, accommodation, and basic services (Richter et al. 2012). Cross-border migrant sex workers, the majority from Zimbabwe, experience some advantages in certain aspects of their work compared to their internal and nonmigrant counterparts, such as having higher education levels, predominantly working parttime in indoor venues rather than on the streets, and earning more money per client. However, they report infrequent condom use, placing them at increased risk of acquiring HIV, and requiring improved access to health care services (Richter et al. 2012). In this article, we argue the importance of engaging with the lived experiences and ‘voices’ of urban poor migrants—including those engaged in unconventional, criminalized informal sector livelihood activities—in order to facilitate the development and implementation of appropriate policy, legal, and municipal responses. The study that we describe in this article, Working the City, was motivated by the need to capture the voices and gain insight into the daily lives of adult migrant women sex workers. They are, as we have already suggested, highly marginalized, stigmatized, and often hidden, and therefore omitted from urban health and development planning processes in the city. In working with these women, we gained a unique opportunity to provide them with a space to present their migration histories, trajectories into sex work, and daily-lived experiences as urban residents. To do this, we conducted a participatory photo project with 11 migrant sex workers who lived and worked in Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg. Johannesburg—now considered one of the world’s most unequal cities with a Gini coefficient of 0.75 (United Nations Habitat 2008)—was established when gold was discovered in the 1880s. Some 130 years later, the city is the economic hub of Sub-Saharan Africa. Hillbrow is the most densely populated suburb in South Africa, and is home to a diverse migrant community of nonnationals from across the continent and South Africans from other provinces. The suburb has a population of approximately 100,000 people; the exact numbers are elusive due to population mobility (StatsSA 2012). During Apartheid, central Johannesburg, including Hillbrow, was designated as a ‘whites only area’ under the Group Areas Act of 1950. In 1991, the Act was abolished, and by the mid-1990s, approximately 85% of Hillbrow’s population was black (Morris 2000). Lack of maintenance and investment, reflecting the inaction of both government and the private sector, led to a decaying
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infrastructure in Hillbrow, and the area rapidly became associated with crime, sex work, derelict buildings, and drugs (Simone 2004). Affordable accommodation in central Johannesburg is in high demand and buildings are overcrowded. Many lack basic (working) facilities, and may be managed by illegal landlords (Simone 2004). Throughout the participatory photography project, which we describe next, participants produced and shared images, captions, and reflections about their lives in Hillbrow. Their depictions of Hillbrow as a place of decay, violence, fear, and crime, but also as a place of work, family, life, and dreams, highlighted the contradictions and complexity of the suburb (see Figures 1–3).
PARTICIPATORY PHOTOGRAPHY The participatory-action research strategy of ‘photo-voice,’ which engages study participants to take photographs as a method of documentation and communication of a physical and social phenomenon, is perceived to offer novel insights and convey the ‘feel’ of specific events or locations often lost with research methods that rely on oral and/or written data (Rose 2012), and have the potential of “catalyzing personal and community change” (Wang, Yi, Tao, and Corovano 1998:75). This strategy for collecting and disseminating knowledge allows local people to get involved in identifying and assessing the strengths and concerns in their community, create dialogue, share knowledge, and develop a presentation(s) of their lived experiences (Hergenrather, Rhodes, and Bardhoshi 2009). The photo-voice process has three main goals: (1) to enable people to record and reflect the strengths and concerns of their community; (2) to promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important community issues through large and small group discussion of images; and (3) to reach policymakers (Wang and Burris 1997). Working the City developed out of a need to explore the lived experiences of migrant women sex workers who were ‘hard to reach,’ not only because of their potentially illegal migration
FIGURE 1 The passageways in Hillbrow are so dark, quiet, and dangerous. Lots of different crimes happen in or near passages and it is believed that this is where criminals hide themselves. (With permission from Sbu.)
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FIGURE 2 There are some very dirty places in Hillbrow with rubbish all over the streets. This is a serious health hazard for everyone living here, especially children. (With permission from Confidence.)
status or criminalized work but also because they resided in Hillbrow. The project was based on prior experience in conducting collaborative participatory photo projects with marginalized urban populations and the Johannesburg-based Market Photo Workshop (MPW; see Vearey 2010; Vearey, Oliveira et al. 2011). In these cases, we adapted a conventional photo-voice approach, and rather than providing participants with simple disposable cameras and limited instructions on how to use them, we provided technical training and support, including daily image and caption review sessions, so providing participants with usable skills. The methodology applied in Working the City reflected these experiences, and our interest in creating a visual output (exhibition) that could be used as a tool to engage a wide range of stakeholders, including public audiences, policymakers, city programmers, and academics. Working the City involved collaboration with the Sisonke Sex Worker Movement, the Market Photo Workshop (a photography training school in Johannesburg), and the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS, a research and teaching center at the University of the Witwatersrand). The Sisonke Sex Worker movement, established in 2003, expects that its members identify as sex workers and support the decriminalization1 (rather than legalization or criminalization) of sex work in South Africa. With the support of ACMS, Sisonke identified and invited 11 migrant women to participate in the study, of whom 6 were rural-urban internal migrants and 5 were cross-border migrants from Zimbabwe. All women were older than 18 years and sold sex in Hillbrow. All participants provided informed consent; the study received ethical approval from the University of the Witwatersrand Research Ethics Committee (nonmedical). Below, we use pseudonyms for all participants.
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FIGURE 3 This picture shows the business side of Hillbrow. There is so much that you can do to make a living. We are all gifted. Life is about choices. You can use whatever you are talented in to make a living. (With permission from Sku.)
The primary phase of the research was an 11-day participatory photography project held at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) in Hillbrow and at the MPW in the inner city suburb of Newtown. During this phase, participants were lent digital cameras and given journals, and were asked to record and reflect on the story or stories that they wanted to share with the public about their lives in Hillbrow. A professional photographer with experience working on photo-voice projects in South Africa facilitated the workshop, and participants were mentored by advanced photography students from the MPW. Days one to nine of the workshop were composed of five main sections: (1) sharing of images and discussion relating to content and quality, (2) basic photography skills, (3) photo shoots in Hillbrow, (4) image selection and editing, and (5) caption writing. Days 9, 10, and 11 were held at MPW, where the women finalized their selection of images and captions. During the workshop, participants were reminded daily that the photo project would culminate in a public exhibition, and that each participant would select eight of her own images, including a self-portrait, for this purpose. The selected photographs and accompanying captions offer a visual narrative of women’s lived experiences, ones that each woman wanted to portray and share. The project culminated in a month-long exhibition, Working the City: Experiences of Migrant Women in Inner City Johannesburg, held at the MPW Gallery in October 2010. The exhibition consisted of 12 posters: 1 poster for each participant composed of the 8 selected images and captions, and a poster introducing the project and partnership. Since the initial exhibition, Working the
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City has been displayed in various public exhibition spaces in Johannesburg, and at international conferences.2
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PHOTO-ELICITATION After the workshop, five research participants were randomly selected to participate in two one hour, in-depth, semistructured narrative interviews, with the photographs used as prompts, to gain further insight into their lives. The use of images in narrative interviews, ‘photo-elicitation,’ is a methodology used by visual researchers as an entry point to the views, perspectives, and experiences of participants (Mitchell 2008). Collier and Collier (1986) suggest that images invite people to take the lead in inquiry, making full use of their expertise. They also propose that “psychologically, the photographs on the table perform as a third party in the interview session” (1986:105), whereby researcher and study participant can explore the images together. During the photo-elicitation phase of the study, the researcher and first author of this article, Elsa Oliveira, opted only to use the final eight images selected by the participant for public exhibition, rather than the entire set of images taken during the project. Elsa relied on her field notes and participant journals to guide the process of further inquiry. Our perception was that all of the participants had omitted and/or changed some aspect of their stories and captions during the final editing phase of the project, and this was an area of particular interest to us. During one interview, Confidence explained why she chose the images, captions, and stories that she did for the final exhibition: I picked these because these tell a good story. They [the public] must just know that it isn’t easy for us. They must feel that we are humans and that we have families; that we are strong women, and that we know why we do what we do. We are too stressed and it is good for us to talk about our lives and take the stress away. It is too good for us to do this and this project let us talk about a lot of stress. But for me, I don’t want the whole world to know about all of my stress. My details are for me to share with whom I want and when I want.
Confidence’s feelings were shared by other participants and resonate with what O’Neil (2002:75) refers to as “ethno mimesis.” During her participatory action research (PAR) with sex workers, she stated that “at every phase of the PAR model there is a possibility for change . . . the mimetic re-telling of life stories in visual, artistic form can validate the experience of the interviewee . . . outcomes of participatory research can inform, educate, remind, challenge and empower both those involved and the audiences of the research outcomes” (2002:75). Sku, a cross-border migrant from Zimbabwe, offered us insight into the role of storytelling, self-representation, and public engagement, and explained her intentional rejection of the stigma and stereotypes that are often connected with sex work and migrants in Hillbrow. Throughout the workshops, Sku depicted Hillbrow as a dirty, unhealthy, and unsafe space, thus reflecting the prevailing negative discourses associated with migration and sex work in the city. However, the captions and narrative story that she produced for public consumption depicted Hillbrow as a place where hard working people with skills lived and worked, and as a place of pride. When asked about this shift, Sku stated:
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I don’t want others to keep making Hillbrow a bad place. If I tell them that Hillbrow is dirty and dangerous then it will confirm everything that they think about this space and us. Everyone believes that Hillbrow is full of criminals and sex workers and foreigners. They think that all foreigners are bad. But I am a sex worker, and a foreigner, and some people might think that I am a criminal too. But I live in Hillbrow so what would I be saying about my home and myself to the world if I said that Hillbrow was ugly? I am not dirty. I am a hard working mother who happens to sell sex. Yes, I believe that Hillbrow is not so safe but it’s also not a bad place.
Sku’s example offers us an important glimpse into the role of stigma in relation to occupied space, migration status, and work. Although she believes that Hillbrow is an undesirable location, her desire to depict home and work in a less grim light highlights a conscious negotiation of stigma and discrimination in the production of her final, public narrative. Bailey and colleagues (2002) argue that identities and space are fluid and relative to place and time. Goldstein (2002: 486) refers to the “performative encounter” as a process where research participants actively decide how they want to be represented and perceived in the world. As the editing process commenced, Sku made an intentional choice—a ‘performative encounter’—in how she wanted to be represented to the public, and how she wanted Hillbrow and migrants to be represented and consumed by others. The negotiation of stigma emerged as a central theme during the photo-elicitation interviews. Participants shed invaluable insights in relation to their complex lived experiences as migrant sex workers. Their internal dissonance regarding their involvement in the selling of sex, their acceptance and/or rejection of stereotypes, and their opinions regarding the movement for the decriminalization of sex work surfaced more clearly during the interviews than they had during the workshop. Although some participants spoke candidly about their involvement and experiences in sex work during the workshop, some made no reference at all to this. All of the participants in this study were members of Sisonke, and in theory were supportive of its calls for the decriminalization of sex work. Decriminalization was not a discussion topic, but when it was mentioned, participants appeared to agree on the merit of this as the appropriate direction for law reform. During interviews, however, some participants shared their concerns, ambivalence, confusion, and/or lack of support for decriminalization. Some participants explained that they were uncomfortable about sharing certain opinions and experiences with the group. Those who were ambivalent about their involvement in sex work, and/or did not support its decriminalization, felt that the group workshop space was not an appropriate place to discuss what could be interpreted as a controversial view, given their membership of and affiliation with Sisonke. Sbu, a cross-border migrant from Zimbabwe, chose not to discuss her involvement in sex work during the workshops, but during a photo-elicitation interview, she spoke openly about her work, the role of religion in her life, and her views on decriminalization, highlighting her confusion about the differences between the decriminalization and legalization of sex work: I do sell sex to make money but I don’t like to talk about this. The workshops were safe places to share experiences about our lives but I am a Christian and I can’t admit to being a sex worker. I only do this when I am at Sisonke meetings because it suits me. I want to be seen as a clean person, as someone who can be a role model. I am ashamed of my work and I wish to do something else. This is not a life. I am not proud of the work that I do. But, it feeds my family. I do not talk about my work so openly because one day I want to be a counsellor or a social worker and I am afraid that my work history will leave people thinking that I am not worth employing. Speaking about sex work would mean that I am proud of my work and there is a lot of pressure to be proud of this work from Sisonke
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but I am not sure that I want it to be decriminalized. Yes, everyone that I know that sells sex does it for their family to survive. We don’t do it because we want to be part of a movement or because we believe that it is a dream job. I don’t want my children to do this work and if it is legal then they might think that it is okay. It is not okay. It is dangerous and I feel afraid every day. If there was a way to make police stop harassing us, then that is good, but to make it legal is not good for anyone.
The workshop allowed participants to explore their lived experiences, receive support and understanding from their peers, learn a new skill, develop trust with the research team, and produce a body of work for public exhibition. The photo-elicitation phase of this study revealed additional insights into the lives and experiences of migrant sex workers that had not surfaced. Deeper insights into issues of migration, trajectories into sex work, experience of sex work—including beliefs and understandings relating to decriminalization, negotiations of public and private spaces, coping strategies, and general sentiments in relation to family, religion, health, and society—were explored with greater depth in interviews when confidentiality and privacy prevailed. This participatory photo project approach made visible the subtleties of space and revealed the complex experiences of the participants; the level of insight that this study offered would not have been possible using a different approach. The combination of a participatory photography workshop, ethnography, and photo-elicitation allowed us to engage with participants on multiple levels. Through this process, we gained a deeper understanding into the intricacy and intersectionality of negotiations, opinions, and experiences of migrant women who sell sex in Johannesburg. In addition, the images and captions generated by the women have, to some degree, positively impacted the ways in which sex workers are understood, viewed, and represented in South Africa. The Working the City images have been circulated widely in both academic and popular written pieces, challenging many stereotypes that people hold about migration, sex work, and sex workers. These images continue to be requested worldwide by organizations and individuals working in public health and migration, as feminists and in pro sex work circles. This has facilitated discussions and unveiled the lived experiences of migrant women sex workers in Johannesburg to a wider audience than may have been possible using a more traditional qualitative approach. Solicitation for the reproduction of images has highlighted the need for alternative depictions of sex work, and has made evident how a visual body of work can be used in various social forums—academic, political, and popular society—to promote social justice and health equity. The three most requested images and captions in Working the City (see Figures 4–6), have appeared in multiple publication outputs and have been used in exhibition announcements advertising the project.3
THE USE OF IMAGES IN RESEARCH AND BEYOND Over the last three decades, a growing body of interdisciplinary scholars have increased the number of image-based techniques applied in ethnographic and other qualitative research to enhance understandings of the human condition (e.g., Kihato 2010; Mitchell 2008; Rose 2012; Venables 2011), despite parallel debates about representation and privacy. As explained above, participants selected eight images for the final public exhibition and as publicly available materials, including online and in publications such as this. Many of the images that participants selected for this purpose clearly identified places of work, themselves, and people in their communities.
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FIGURE 4 This is my self-portrait. You cannot see my face but you can see the beautiful colors and contrast in the picture. This is who I am. (With Permission from Ana.)
FIGURE 5 Johannesburg is the land of opportunities for most people in Africa, although most of of them face difficulties—like I did—when coming to South Africa. (With permission from Lety.)
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FIGURE 6 I took this picture as I feel that most sex workers are being discriminated against and that some people feel ashamed that sex work exists. As if it is something out of this world. (With permission from Confidence.)
We worked with participants to edit their final exhibition images. This raises important ethical dilemmas when using a participatory photography approach with a marginalized community that engages in illegal activities. The participants were clear that the final selection of images would be shared in public spaces and, in line with our ethics approval, we engaged extensively with them on this. Drawing on this experience, we feel that future projects should pay increased attention to (1) ensuring participants understand fully what is entailed in a public exhibition and publicly available materials, and (2) in determining—with participants–what images are used for public consumption. Images that identify the participant, their work spaces, family, and friends should— with the involvement of participants—be edited out of materials produced for public consumption in order to minimize the risk to them. These methodologies raise new questions, particularly when, as in this case, the work is prepared for exhibition and the participants are undertaking work more complex than that associated with a traditional photo-voice approach: Are the products research or art? Do images tell the truth, or rather, what truths are told through visuals? How do we interpret the subjectivity of the visual? Many critics of visual methodologies question the nature of subjectivity of representation by the photographer/participant, but it is exactly this subjectivity that can unlock insights into the complexities and intersections of experiences, such as those of migrant women sex workers. Emmison and Smith question the “methodological adequacy” of visual research, and note that photographs “must always be considered a selective account of reality” (2000:40). But we question the adequacy of any and all methods, including the narrative questionnaire, the interview, the
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observation and the image. This requires us to interrogate the function of the image and its limitations. However, participant-generated photographs can be used to initiate and inspire further narrative inquiry, and they allow participants to generate and share their life stories in a visual, participant-led way, so defining to the researcher and the public what is relevant and important to them. The photographs can be shared with different sectors of the public, and they can be used as a tool to engage in public discussions. Obviously some studies lend themselves better to visual projects, and not all questions are best answered through the use of the visual. In Working the City, we believed that participatory photography and photo-elicitation were valuable approaches and methods on several levels. First, through involving participants in the data collection, the project facilitated access to the lived experiences of women who are assumed to be hard to reach and who are therefore regularly omitted both from research and urban policy processes. Second, the use of photographs enabled the participants and researchers to engage in an urban space often deemed ‘too dangerous’ and inaccessible to research. Third, by exercising full control, research participants were able to choose how they wanted to represent themselves to the research team and to (their interpretation of) the public, and by doing so, they created a body of work that continues to be utilized in various public spaces. It is important to highlight the positive feedback that we received from participants in the project. The process of testimony and public witness to experiences, the re-telling of stories, sharing knowledge and learning new skills can be transformative for participants (Beltran and Begun 2014; Hamber and Palmary 2009; O’Neil 2002). During the last day of the workshop, participants were brought together with the research team to discuss their involvement in the project. The few quotes below shed light on some of their perceptions and sentiments, although we are acutely aware that—as with the production of the photographs themselves and the multiple, shifting narratives that accompanied these images—participants were sharply aware of those to whom they were producing their reactions, namely, the project team: It is important to tell my story because it’s my life. This way I can think about my life and I can share my story with someone. Most of the days, people don’t want to hear what we have to say. We are usually invisible in the world but this project can make me feel visible (Mimi). When I am telling my story I am telling my story with my photo. Like when I was telling the story of how people are trying to rob me. I can show the picture of the place and inside me I know the story. I know that story. I can tell it or not but to me I am telling my story because I visited that memory and this is too good. I can let go of stress and pain now about that story. Now I know that I am ok. (Thembile) Sometimes things happen and they eat you your whole life. This project helped me to think about my story, my life and now I get to talk with you and it’s a good thing. People are too stressed because they never get to tell their story. They have this and that in their lives and it’s hard because no one knows these things. Me, I can tell you anything because I know that I will never run into you anywhere that I live and so it is safe for me. Because of this I am free to share my stories of pain and to dream because you know, we don’t share dreams. It’s like we don’t have them or we are foolish if we share them but I can share them with you. I can share them in my pictures too and not tell anyone what I really mean by that picture. The stories are mine to share or not. (Iketlang) I really enjoyed learning photography. It was too long since I learned something and this makes me feel better about me and my ability to learn new things. (Confidence)
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The photographs and captions elicited a wealth of information from the migrant women sex workers and allowed researchers, participants, and community members to engage in discussions on the key issues they presented. This method captured details that might have been overlooked by conducting interviews alone that elicited only narrative stories—the primary alternative to most researchers in working with publics in Hillbrow. There are, of course, several limitations to this approach and this study. Insufficient time was allocated for participants to reflect on their participation in the project. Some images and captions selected by participants for the final exhibition were not included for ethical reasons (such as an identifiable client in the photograph), the quality of the image, or the limited space on the posters (some participants expressed a desire to display additional photographs). An important limitation is related to the participatory nature of the project, and the power inequalities between the research team, the academic researchers, the professional photographs working at MPW, and the sex worker organization (Sisonke) on the one hand, and the study participants (migrant women sex workers) on the other. The research team developed the methodology and the workshop agenda; although input from the participants was solicited throughout the project, the decision to conduct a participatory photo project and develop a public exhibition was undertaken by the research team. Future projects are encouraged to solicit greater and more comprehensive involvement by the community and/or individuals being researched during the planning stages of a project to strengthen the participatory nature of the approach, and so acknowledge the inherent power imbalance that exists between different project constituents. This would allow for the needs and views of the participants to be included in the project design. Adequate time for reflection at the end of the project would allow further insight into the use of visual methodologies when researching marginalized and hidden urban populations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our appreciation goes to the 11 participants for generously sharing their stories with us. We would like to acknowledge our partnership with the Market Photo Workshop and Sisonke Sex Worker Movement and thank all involved for their commitment to the project. We warmly thank Lenore Manderson for her helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
FUNDING The research study presented in this article was part of the first author’s MA research project and funding was received from the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Market Photo Workshop. Production of this article is part of a series of articles from a British Academy funded workshop, for a special issue co-edited by Lenore Manderson and Emilie Venables.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL Supplementary data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.
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NOTES 1. Decriminalization relates to a recommended legal framework to protect the rights and well-being of sex workers. For more information, please see: http://www.sweat.org.za. 2. The project has been selected to participate in various initiatives in Johannesburg, including Goethe Institute’s Wide Angle, an event that focused on the use of participatory photography as a tool for social awareness and public practice. Working the City has been showcased at the Drama for Life’s Sex Actually Festival at Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa. In addition, the exhibition has been shown in several International Conferences including 1st International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference, Durban, South Africa: June, 2011; International Association of Forced Migration Studies, Kampala, Uganda: July 2011; 10th International Conference on Urban Health, Minas Gerais, Brazil: November 2011; 5th Annual HIV-In-Context Research Symposium: Urbanization, Inequality and HIV, Cape Town: March 2013; Sexuality and Policy Watch Training, Rio de Janeiro 2013; International Association for the Study of Sexuality Culture and Society, Buenos Aires, 2013. 3. Images have been used in various academic and popular publications, including Research for Sex Work Journal, Beijo da Rua, African Women’s Journal, Equal Treatment Magazine, Agenda Magazine, African Sex Worker Alliance, Sexual Health and Rights Initiative of South Africa, African Centre for Migration & Society, Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa Law Manual, and African Media and Diversity Journal. Images have also appeared in the following books: Cities and Photography by Jane Tormey and Not No Place by Dorthee Kreutzfeldlt and Bettina Malcommes.
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