‘Liminal identities’ and power struggles, reflections on the regulation of everyday foodways at a homeless centre and the use of creative participatory research as a tool of empowerment and resistance

Abstract

In this paper we contextualise the presentation of ‘i-poems’ and ‘they-poems’ used at the AMH Annual conference, in an attempt to continue to give ‘voice’ to socially excluded research participants, who engaged in a ‘food as a lifestyle motivator’ (FLM) project funded by an Institute of Sustainability Solutions Research (ISSR) collaborative award in 2014, to support wellbeing and life skills in marginalised groups. The inter-disciplinary research team adopted a ‘photo elicitation’ method, part of a range of creative participatory techniques, with participants invited to photograph everyday food activities in order to empower/engage. The project aim was to demonstrate how ‘photoelicitation’, could be used as a tool of empowerment. We reflect on this technique and its’ potential to disrupt power relations, through analysis of a focus group discussion conducted with participants about their photographs, alongside analysis of some of the photographs. We illustrate the power relationships inherent in all social research practices and how creative participatory research approaches are no less influenced by these dynamics (Letherby 2003, Liamputtong 2007). Hence, whilst there were clear power relationships apparent within the homeless centre (HC) itself, as demonstrated through our oral presentation, these were also played out within the processes of research and knowledge production. Yet, the research participants’ photographs challenge the notion of ‘the homeless’ as an homogenous group, instead these can be considered ‘presentations of the self’ (Goffman 1959), outside of the label of ‘vulnerable’ and/or ‘marginal’. We therefore further demonstrate how residents at a homeless centre resist the regulation of their lives around food, illustrating Foucault’s maxim; ‘where there is power, there is resistance’ (1990:95).