Okay, we're gonna go ahead and start.
Yes. Got it. Okay. Hello, everybody. I'm Maria Elisa Christie. I'm director of Women
and Gender in International Development at CIRED, the Center for International Research, Education,
and Development. I think somebody has to mute their Zoom, probably one of our computers. Okay
and yeah she's gonna be checking this. So thank you everybody for coming in person and all the
people we have on Zoom as well.So this is a hybrid session. We just started coming back
into the library this semester, but we don't wanna lose our international and national
followers on them. So as of this morning we had 93 people registered for today's event
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um discussion will last approximately 45 minutes our speaker's presentation
will be about 25 minutes followed by 20 minutes question answer and discussion
um so all of the participants joining via Zoom will be muted to enable the speaker to
present without interruption. After Jessica's presentation people can raise their hands here
in person and we have two microphones that we'll send around so that everybody can hear including
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I hate to say this but when we send you a link to a survey please take one minute to respond to it.
It's really important to us. Tweet Us by tagging at WGD_VT. Okay now to introduce our speaker
what you're really here for Jessica Spence is an experienced researcher in gender-based agriculture
issues and international agricultural education she was most recently a program coordinator
at the Borlaug Institute for international agriculture for the USDA FAS funded International
agricultural education. She was most recently a program coordinator at the Borlaug Institute for
International Agriculture for the USDA-FAS-funded International Agricultural Education Fellowship
Program, where she worked and lived in Ghana overseeing and managing the program aimed
at increasing school-based agriculture education in conjunction with 4H Ghana.
She's currently a doctoral student here at Virginia Tech in the Department of Agricultural
Leadership and Community Education. Her research focuses on gender-based
agriculture issues and school-based agriculture education within International Development.
Her master's thesis studied the experience of female smallholder farmers in Northern
Uganda through the photovoice methodology and she's focused on conducting research aimed
at the empowerment of women farmers across the developing world. Her title today is "Speaking
for themselves: The importance of enabling Ugandan women to share their story through photography
and Community dialogue." So please welcome Jessica Spence and please stand here for the zoom viewers.
Thank you everyone! Thank you to everyone on zoom and everyone that's here in person
um I'm really excited to share this research with you and very thankful that Dr. Christie asked
me to speak in this series um and so this was my Master's thesis research at Texas A&M University.
So it's been a few years since that yes since I did it um uh but it's still um a very important uh
piece of work for me and has um very much affected my trajectory as a researcher and the things that
I care about in this world. So this is speaking for themselves, the importance of enabling
Ugandan women to share their story through photography and Community dialogue and before
I really get into it I want to introduce you all to Ruby this is a pseudonym as are all the names
in the rest of the study but Ruby is nonetheless a very real incredible sassy powerful woman living
in the Apache region in Northern Uganda. She farms sunflowers if you couldn't tell but she
also forms a myriad of other crops and cares for many animals that she uses to feed her family and
something really incredible about Ruby is when I asked her how many kids she had she said she had
16 dependents so that includes her kids, some of her family members kids that she cares for
and some orphans that she's taken in. Not all my participants have 16 dependents that's quite a bit
but um they all have a large family and a lot of people that they care for so I just kind of wanted
to paint a picture about Ruby and all of her responsibilities before we kind of got into this.
So keep her in mind as we work through this. So, as we know, we gotta eat to survive, agriculture
is globally important. I don't think you can argue with me on that one but women are a huge part of
producing agriculture globally, especially when it comes to communities like Uganda or countries like
Uganda that depend heavily on subsistence and smallholder farming. um unfortunately women's
issues that are globally seen can intensify in developing countries including issues of land
ownership, monetary control, lack of resources, and policy that tends to work against them and
we also know that there's a gender-based lack of research and extension efforts made towards
women in these types of communities. So a little bit about Uganda, the pearl of Africa oh let me
quickly make this small so everyone can see ah it's gonna does this. Okay um so Uganda is a
beautiful tropical country in Eastern Africa and um it was a British colony from the late 1800s all
the way to the mid-1900s and is very diverse with 19 ethnic groups but it's also important to note
that agriculture is very important to Uganda and its economy and its livelihood and Society. It's
often said I've heard it many times whilst in the country that agriculture is the backbone of
Uganda and that's also even cited in literature so quite important to the country and in Uganda
like I described these global issues. Those are um unfortunately uh still existing in Uganda.
And we also know that women in Uganda tend to produce more food especially in smallholder
farming type um situations, produce more food than their male counterparts um and are also
in charge of majority family responsibility child rearing and home care and things of that nature.
So um to touch a bit on my theoretical framework that guided this study and is quite intertwined
with the method that we'll talk about in a second I utilized Southern Feminist Theory
um that is not to be confused with the South we have here in America but the global South
um and it denotes traditional Western feminist thinking
um as it uh recognizes that women in colonized or previously colonized nations have their own
separate issues that are different than those of women in Western countries.
um and so the purpose why I did this was to better explain and understand
um the issues Ugandan women agriculture smallholders agricultural producers face with the
aims being to define and understand those issues but also to make recommendations for change in
policy that's a large tenet of photo voice. So to get to photo voice this thing that I keep talking
about. I have a couple slides on this method because I want to dig into this a little bit
um more than I probably even did in my Master's presentation because it's not really about the
method but I love this method it's um I think very appropriate for this population and populations
like it um and it's rooted in feminist Theory and Paulo Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed
um thinkings and is been developed by Wang and Burris in the late 1980s to 1990s to
be specifically appropriate for marginalized populations
um and those typically who don't have a voice to give a voice to the voiceless is what they say
um and it's also a form of participatory action research which I had never heard
that term before uh this study but that's become increasingly important to me to have participants
in research actively involved in telling their story and working with the researcher to make
sure it's the story that they want to be told and generating that data rather than just simply my
observations if I had gone in and taken these photos they would have looked very differently
than what the participants produced. So getting to that very literally photo voice was me giving 10
cameras to women in two different Villages five in each and asked them to take photos of their lives
and we later talked about that in focus groups so they were digital cameras point and shoot um and
we'll get to that in that to that a little bit in the uh later in this presentation but like I said
um photo voice really is rooted in a Feminist Theory with a generating um uh the study by and
with participants and mirroring feminist inquiry into women's realities that is carried out by and
with women instead of on them in an empowering way that uh honors the intelligence of uh the
women the participants in the study with the goal of valuing their knowledge and experience.
So like I said I worked with 10 wonderful women and two different villages I spent uh quite a
bit of time there just in those communities getting to know them and um after a church
service one day there was a community gathering where I had gained permission from the um uh from
the community leader to ask the women in his village if I could um uh invite them to be a
part of this study. I want to definitely note and highlight the one and only Agnes Obote who was my
um translator who spoke Lou and Lango and I could not have completed the study without her she is
a general coordinator for the NGO called Field of hope that operates in Lira Uganda and she has been
working in these communities for over 10 years. So they know her very well there is a lot of
trust there and I can guarantee you I would have absolutely been a stranger in these communities
if I'd walked into them without her. So she is a huge part of my ability to have done this at all
um and anytime I go to Uganda she says I'm here. She's my Uganda mama. so I love her deeply.
Back to uh this study I wanted to also note that something particular about um northern Uganda um
it's like I said a very diverse country and it's people but also different histories of the regions
in the country and that it has specifically been stunted especially agriculturally
um by its by the impact of the lra the Lord's resistance Army in the late 1980s to the early
2000s that's um was very tragic and um kept people out of their homes and livelihoods and
out of the farms and stunted a lot of agricultural knowledge passed down to
generations. So that is something specific about this region um that has impacted agriculture
um and so the sample for this uh study was like I said 10 women and they were all uh subsistence
farmers in some capacity growing very similar crops from soybeans, cow peas which are black
beans sunflowers most of them had chickens or a couple of pigs and a couple of them had Ox as
you will see um and like I kind of explained I got a little ahead of myself I worked with
those communities and identified opinion leaders to gain permission to enter those communities and
ask for participants and luckily I had people that agreed to my crazy ideas and um I distributed five
cameras to five different women. I taught them how to use them. Most of these women have smartphones
or phones in some capacity and have taken many pictures in their lives but um I believe it was
all of their first time using a point-and-shoot camera that those are I feel like a thing of the
past at this point but very useful for this study and they were digital and I used an SD card for
the photos a lot of times photo voice uses film but that was not really possible where I was so
um they had 10 days and I asked them just simply to take pictures of their lives as farmers
um and did very little to influence like any kind of Photography style or this is how you
take a photo, what should be in a photo, the subject of a photo any kind of advice like
that was not given as is suggested by Wang and Burris um to not influence whatever creative
um possibilities that could come from the participants minds themselves. So um before
we get into the results of this study I want to talk about a pretty cool thing that happened when
I got back after 10 days to see the photos these women had taken. They took over 800 collectively
and a large portion of them were self-portraits um and they didn't have a selfie stick they didn't
have a tripod to set something up on and so I don't want to get into like photography ethics
and who takes a photo and who owns it and all that stuff they took their self-portraits they
asked someone to take a picture of them and they were in the photo that they composed and
said hey take a picture of me with this with the situation which you'll see in a second but
um I was not expecting that whenever I sat down with them and saw that I thought oh my gosh I've
done something wrong they've they didn't did they take this photo or did they not and I had to let
those feelings go and just um that's what they all decided to do and I think it's really cool
that that happened in two separate villages. They were two hours apart from each other by car and
um very likely no communication between the two to um talk about that was the plan. So
um that was really cool so the following photos in the rest of this section of the
results section are taken by the women in the study. The study also resulted in two
major themes described by seven different sub themes and that's what we're about to dig into.
So the first major theme that the women shared with me as they shared their photos came in
the form of what I call agronomic knowledge and competencies and that's described by the sub
themes varied agricultural practices, physical skills and fatigue and technical challenges.
So starting off with varied agricultural practices as is shown here these women know
what they're doing they know how to manage their crops. They're very knowledgeable
and work very hard to grow their crops for their families but they really wanted
to display that knowledge to me and showing me all the different techniques that they used
and well I'm sorry I forgot to mention they picked one to two photos or asked for them to
pick one to two photos a piece out of the 800 or out of their own portions but we went
through all of them. They really wanted to explain every single photo to me which was incredible so
and a great experience but they really wanted to show me all of the practices that they knew
and they were very competent to agricultural producers.
Another unfortunate but realistic and just rooted in the reality of their lives
theme was that of physical fatigue most of these women are farming by hand hoe and
if they're lucky they have an ox plow, and they can share that but that's not always available,
and they wanted to show me how they farm using handheld but also talked about how tired they were
and how laborious this is not only in planting and tilling the soil but also in harvest and
in that in between time they physically talked about chasing crows away, and keeping their crops
safe with their physical bodies so an intensely laborious job. They also talked about technical
challenges coming from anything from pests to showing me yellowed leaves and holes and leaves
eaten away by pests as well as issues with germination and the expense that comes from
buying seeds over and over again, and seeds being sold to them that are faulty and having to buy
more and that's really costly and an unfortunate part of what they have to deal with. Coming to
the next larger theme described by quite a few sub themes is abstract social constructs and those are
described by the sub themes patriarchal society, women assuming the majority responsibility,
financial and physical abuse, independence, lack of help and visualization of self-actualization. So
starting off themes of a patriarchal society came through in these discussions another notes
there were no men present during the time of the focus group so in hopes that that would be like a
free space to talk about anything that might be controversial if that was not the case. So
they talked about being responsible for the majority of the cultivation of their crops that
they were out there all day working and that their male counterparts may come help them in
the morning but often leave and they are left to work in the field and then also that
they come home and are in charge of food, household care and education of their children.
That kind of comes into the women assuming the majority responsibility when it came to cooking
water, firewood everything they had to do at home and including the agricultural process thrashing,
harvesting they said as all the work of the woman and that they're also responsible
for their children and that children also come to them in terms of school funds and anything
like that they come to their mother for funds going to school, clothes and anything like that.
Unfortunately, they talked about financial abuse at the threat of physical abuse and that
both of those things are come together. They do all of this work and when it's time
to go to the markets and exchange goods for money, that money then goes into the hands of
their male counterparts and that they do not retain control of those funds yet have
this like problem where the children still are asking them rather than their father for funds
for school and things like that when they are not in control of that. And when any pushback
or wanting to retain those funds is asked for that's met often with physical violence.
Another theme that was very clear through their words and photos was independence,
like I described they do a lot of this work with some help but a lot of it by themselves.
There is obviously community and people are helping each other but they all have
their own Farms that they have to take care of in their own kids, and people depending on them
but are extremely independent through that work and feel very capable of themselves.
One of the participants said she specifically took photos of herself
to show me that she does all of this work by herself. Another theme that I really
wasn't expecting but really came up quite a bit was just they felt they had a lack of help
in how draining it is to feel like you don't have help and that affected their happiness.
This theme kind of came through our discussion about the self-portraits and what those meant when
I saw those and asked them why they took them. It was part of their self-actualization as
being a farmer and being a woman farmer, so they wanted to show
that their struggles as women farmers by showing that by photographing
themselves and took photos of themselves to show their challenges as women farmers.
This started to throw numbers at you in the middle of a qualitative study but I just wanted
to put this in here to kind of talk about those self-portraits for a minute as they're kind of
especially intertwined in this previous theme in this next theme we're going to talk about.
And that is just like I said over 800 photos taken but a large percentage of them from almost
every participant and large is relative. But I think a significant portion of them
being self-portraits which I thought was just an incredible phenomena. And lastly
we saw pride and self-identification so not only am I a farmer but I'm very
proud to be a farmer and proud to be a woman farmer and they wanted to show
me that women can do farming too and I I'm probably and obviously an outsider and they
obviously had preconceptions of what I thought a farmer looks like in Uganda but they wanted
to really show me that women are powerful and can do farming just like a man can. So
that leads me to our conclusions. My first research question was how do
Ugandan women see their role within Agriculture and I found that they see their role holistically
not only as a producer but also responsible for their families and that those things are
quite intertwined and that they self-identify as farmers and have a lot of pride in that role. And
for the research for the next research question how do what Uganda women feel they face
gender-based challenges within agriculture, we saw the responsibility that is the reality that they
take on more than the men in their lives and that they're motivated to produce in the garden
because of the responsibilities to feed their kids and their dependents that they care about at home.
And unfortunately that they do not retain control over their income and that lack of
help in general. When I also answering the research question what struggles do they face
within agriculture we really see those technical issues come through as well as the gender-based
ones but that fatigue and physical tiredness lack of help and just general agriculture
issues that was in the first major theme. And thinking about how improvements can be made
I think that they should be made or I can conclude that they can be made thinking about
these technical issues and gender issues and how we can kind of attack those together.
So my recommendations are many but I'll kind of be brief with you.
I know that this was just a few women in a very niche part of the world but their
experience is not like other women in other parts of the world so I recommend that the study is
replicated with like populations and other parts of the country of the region and of the globe.
I also know that there are many voices missing from these questions and that's the voices of men
and so I really recommend that further research be done into men's thoughts on
these topics. I also think a study like I said I kind of kept this separate and like in
a space that was protected with knowing that men weren't around while the data was being collected
or we were talking about these things but how would these answers change if men
were in the room I think that that would be a really important thing to look at as well.
And lastly, I am very excited about this because I think it's very seldom that you maybe
get to see some of your recommendations come to life but I recommend extension
specifically targeted uh for women and that being a like that that is meant for them and
some students at Texas A & M University back in 2020 um competed in the United Nations case competition
against some really like heavy competition it's a very cool competition you guys should look at
but check it out but they won third place uh in the globe it was incredible and they based their
plan off of this recommendation for gender-based extension training
in Northern Uganda and although they got their place and therefore didn't get funds um which is
very unfortunate they have worked hard to produce Grassroots funding and created a program called
her Mighty hands that now works with field of hope that organization that Agnes works with to produce
videos that can be disseminated in luo and lingo in that are extension technical agriculture
training and they're specifically working with women a lot of them being the women in the study,
which is very awesome and so yeah that recommendation is already coming to fruition
be it small but it is mighty and will hopefully continue to grow. So they've already piloted it and
seen results of higher yields with the women that have been working with program so very cool.
So sorry getting back to this there's my little tangent there. In summary this study discovered
that women farmers in Uganda face a myriad of issues that build upon one another to create a
wall of seemingly impenetrable challenges but they're resilient and proud and if efforts
were made to help promote their agriculture knowledge or support them that those would come
back tenfold because of the responsibility that they feel towards their family and the pride they
feel as farmers. And lastly, I want to come back to that statement that agriculture is the backbone of
Uganda so backbone of the country. I really feel like it's evident through this study that women
are the muscle behind that backbone and that they should be worked to be empowered and unified.
Thank you all for being here and listening to me talk about this thing for quite some
time and a special thank you to the women of Dokolo and Apache for letting me take some
of their time and hear their stories. Thank you to Field of Hope and Agnes and thank you to the
Center for conflict and development at Texas A & M who funded the cameras for this study. Thanks.
I went over time a little bit sorry no no you're fine um let's see I'm not sure if
I should unmute I think should I mute no no yeah no I think if they unmute they can talk
here I'm going to talk on this thing so just we're going to take turns having questions
from in here and I think you can stand up here and call them and then I'll read
one from the zoom that's coming on the chat. So I'm going to start with one from the chat
just because they're not here so give them a little bit business here so Rebecca and I'm
sorry if I pronounce that incorrectly says hi Jessica just wondering how did you decide where in
Uganda to work connecting with these particular communities? A very good question the reality
of that is field of Hope was my end in these communities specifically Agnes and these are they
work with more communities than just these two but these were what was accessible to me but also
the reason why I feel the pope is in Northern Uganda is because of those that
compared to other regions of the country is that's Agricultural Development stunting
as a result of the lra so that's why they're there to begin with that's why that region has specific
issues and that's a little different than other parts of the country in terms of
agricultural development which is compounding on why I was there but
to be honest that was the access I had so that is a part of why I was there. Anybody?
I was fascinated
I was fascinated that you that the women described every photograph to you and I
assume you have notes on that. Do you have plans for that's a that's a rich
trove of data I mean and the photographs themselves do you see doing more with this project?
all good questions thankfully I'm happy to be an ichthos fellow at Virginia Tech where
I've got a lot of free time to delve back into this research and specifically work on research
um but yes that was incredible that was again you know I'm like a new baby researcher and I'm
sitting down trying to follow it by the book on like you sit down you ask them for one to
two photographs and that's what you talk about but they were like they were going to talk about
all the photographs that they took and they went through every single one so yes a lot of data, I
would really like to look at the journey of photo visual literacy as the photos I can
just like tell by looking at them that they got the hang of using the camera and telling
more of a story as the photos progress and I think that's really cool. I think just by my knowledge
of the data the photos that they selected were ones they took later in those 10 days and so
um I think that kind of lends itself to that their comfortableness with the camera
and kind of what that says too in conjunction with those things they talked about. Very good question.
I don't know if this mic is working but I'm gonna just pretend it is so I'm going to read a question
from a person on Zoom this is Cedra Khalid were the themes also developed with the women
or did you come up with them yourself? how involved were women in the analysis process? Good question
I was back in the United States whenever I was finally analyzing the data
and so no the themes were developed by myself but I definitely think that that would be a
great modification of photo voice to continue working with participants and develop those
themes together that's another way to take the method that definitely would be very Innovative
and I think also important and really keeping with that the whole point of
it being that participatory action if you continue that on through analysis I think
would be really powerful but no that's not what I did. I raised my hand, I had a question in there
yeah so can I go ahead and ask? sure go ahead. oh okay, Jessica that was really really interesting
thank you. I had a question about and I put it in the chat, is you know I not having control over
their income. Is there are there any options I mean I know that Seva for example in India puts
has set up insurance plans and sort of banking where women, poor women, self-employed women can
have some control over their income which would Empower them. So was there any such thought
initiative comments that the women you spoke with made? Excellent question, uh yes, uh yes and no. I
can't speak in terms of more formal banking I really lack the knowledge on that subject however
field of Hope has been working there for that many years uh with a VSLA Village Savings and Loan
Association okay I believe is the correct acronym with those communities they're the way it has gone
I've been working with that Organization for four or five years at this point so I have a little
bit of knowledge about some different feedback on that is that it starts with women but in almost
every instance as they grow the program and invite more people in every community
they start with women especially in leadership positions like Treasurer but often when men
want to be a part of it and they come into the organization they often start to take over and
be president or Treasurer because with the justification that they have more literacy
than most of the women and uh or education and so I should be Treasurer because I've been to
school longer etc so yes that is a possibility and those VSLAs have been successful just
me thinking that I feel the Hope's done a good job there but that is an issue that arises in most
of those programs as well so thank you. yeah thank you. Let me get one more in the room and then yeah
oh here here
I was wondering two things, one why was it important not to give them smart not to let them
use just their regular smartphones and and use the point-and-click cameras instead, and then the
other one is you were talking about being inspired by Southern feminist Theory and post-colonial
theory and I don't know what these women talked about in terms of their own theorizing about
their situation, if they were thinking about colonial draining of resources from the land
and also, how they felt that their collectivists impulse to protect their families was a feminist
impulse. So I'm inviting you to speak a bit more about that. Yeah, definitely I chose to bring in
those point-shoots a because data can be expensive also data can be the reception and those regions
can be questionable so in terms of making sure that was possible. Also those phones are typically
shared within a family and quite often in control of the husband and so um assuming that
they would have that for 10 days and have the freedom to take those photos was not something
I wouldn't want to make that assumption, so that's why I brought them. I also assumed that some of
them may not have phones and so I didn't want to rely on that and then that was a uniform way of
they used SD cards, I could put that in my computer also just like technically made sense. As far as
that was concerned as far as comments about colonialism and anything of that nature that's
just that did not come up as part of the themes, nor did I what was this family formation
uh not as in terms of colonialism now. But separately from that one because you kept pointing
back to family members as being their inspiration so I'm wondering if they saw that though in a very
strong light as opposed to like and then as a form of feminism is what I'm. Absolutely yes,
and that they were I think not necessarily heads of household but were
the like again muscle behind that one and even though they're not in charge of the money the kids
come to them for school and things like that and for those things like um they're the the one you
get permission from even though they may not have have the monetary control. So I definitely think so.
Okay I'm gonna read one from the chat this is from and again I'm just gonna try to pronounce
it right but sorry if I don't Marie Lys, says hi Jessica wonderful presentation.
I'm curious to know if the mothers can bring their children with them while they tend to
their agricultural activities like for instance if they're breastfeeding or even pregnant and
I'm also wondering if these traditional ways of attending to plants and having women work
is also demonstration in itself of tradition and as you were explaining independence and strength.
um yes great question. Hi Marie Lys! Thanks for coming um uh absolutely uh that you will see
um babies tied to mother's backs while they are weeding or tending to their garden um I went
back to go visit this past summer and one of the participants um was heavily pregnant and still out
working so um absolutely as far as traditional agriculture um to be honest I didn't see a lot
of I saw a lot of manual labor but not necessarily what I would think of as traditional agriculture
a lot of impact of like Green Revolution type you know treated seeds um things like that so I
I don't uh necessarily know if that's something that I saw but I definitely think that that is
something to look further into. Can I just follow on from that question oh I was curious you know
um is the knowledge of that the women are putting into their farming is that something they train
or they teach their daughters about I mean is this something that they passed down Generations.
Yes and that is why the impact of the LRA where people were kind of kept in um kind of camps
essentially away from their home Villages for 20 years kind of eliminated that ability to pass
down knowledge generationally um but yes as um I think as soon as a daughter is old enough our and
children are old enough to begin working in the garden that that is they are helping um absolutely
and so um yeah that is how they get that knowledge is passed down to them okay thank you.
uh yeah great presentation thanks Jessica um I noticed when you were presenting the
concept of photo voice that you uh said as it said give voice to the voiceless and
you put it in air quotes perhaps hinting at what others have said that no one is truly voiceless
it's just that there are conditions that make people's voices less heard or less amplified
um and I like that you used enabling in the title as well um because that's I think what photo voice
does but it makes me curious about you know so clearly there were these these feminist themes
of self-identity and power, I'm wondering did the women also reflect on this exercise as you
know so what were their existing ways of speaking and being heard about their livelihood
activities and then how did getting to participate in this field different and sort of was it a huge
rupture or were they like oh no we always speak up anyway this is just a new version of doing it?
uh great question um I they reflected positively about photo voice and just
it being like a fun thing to do and they enjoyed also speaking with each other. I think
um the uh outspokenness was very individualized like I said Ruby in the beginning um I have no
doubt she's voiced her opinion uh at some point but in general I think that it's um uh like I
kind of talked about with the physical control met with our financial control met with physical
violence that opposition is is often met with uh physical violence or like that male control so
um in terms of I think their usual ways of communicating about it um I um definitely
think it's talked about amongst women commonly um Agnes was very aware of all of these things and
and helps definitely um guide a lot of that as far as um uh helping me think through uh research or
the interview questions and things like that that were appropriate um so they definitely they talked
to her about it and um um especially because she's a woman but has been working there for
so long but I think that trust has definitely lent that but um I'm positive just constant
communal uh conversation is being had about these things but prior and after to me being there.
Okay I'm going to read um there's a couple people that haven't asked questions yet so I'm going to
jump to them though we have several others so this was from Caleb Umberger. Hello! Were
the participants involved in deciding what the recommendations should be for the study?
um yes um I did ask them what they would like and they asked for more training on agricultural
uh technical issues so yes in part um but also as I developed and analyzed a lot of the
recommendations were based on myself as well but again that's to someone's comments about
involving participants in the um analysis as well I think that that would be a great modification of
photo voice as well and continue um that member checking and coming back to those participants
um uh absolutely as far as the development of recommendations.
anybody else?
I actually kind of following one of them like earlier questions so I'm thinking about hearing
all of these oh hearing all of these stories about the photographs or those done one-on-one or were
they in the group so I guess a shorter question is did the women talk to one another about why they
took the photos they did and what those photos meant? I um did not ask them if they spoke about
the study outside that's that was a great question I wish I would have asked that um uh
especially when it came to the I was not expecting the and I should have maybe expected the communal
nature of how they took the photos and asking each other to take them um I think we can infer
that they were discussing it if they were asking someone to take a photo of them in a certain way
um but I didn't specifically ask them about dialogue that they had about the photo taking
um while they were independent. Oh yeah sorry yes uh both groups how I collected the
discussion of of the um photos was in a focus group form but they were five and five in each
Village I visited I believe Doclo First and Apache next on two different days and then 10
days later it was still Below in a patch so they each had an equal amount of time
um it was like same time same place same time of day um and it was all of them together in a focus
group for individual answering questions there was a lot of consensus when one person would say one
thing I would um hear almost all of them you know nod or go hmm in and um in agreeance together so
um they kind of confirming that that was um all of them as well and then there was dialogue between
them so which is why I think focus groups are um uh I don't want to say better but really behoove
the the method of photo voice in terms of that Community dialogue being part of it
um I definitely would have not gotten the same data if I had done
um individual interviews um I I fear that questions would maybe be asked very directly in
um conversation may not have um gone past that um due to the language barrier but because Agnes
was there they could talk freely um in luo or lingo and um then Agnes could translate what they
were saying and so that freedom to go past the question and also talk to each other and a lot of
gender data being generated from that and also the confirmability of of one person saying something
and hearing for the women go oh that happens to me too or I have the same problem and also this
um adds to the strength of whatever uh part of the theme that was. Okay we have some more good
questions in here so Meikah Dado says Meikah okay no that's good so because you kept the
SD cards were the women able to access their own photos at all such as keeping hard copies of them
um I am actually a good question great question Micah I am planning to bring hard copies of
their photos to them this Summer um but they did not keep the cameras I donated that to
um field of Hope Agnes advised that specifically for like jealousy issues and things like that
um I like thought about that quite a bit because you want to you know
um but but that was kept very upfront if you're participating this is not something that would
be kept but um Agnes did not recommend that they keep them. So I do have the SD cards and
unfortunately the photos but I have I will be bringing them their physical printed uh
photos this summer when I go so yes. Great question Meikah and Meikah is one of the ones that's directly
involved with her Mighty hands and in the uh un case competition so thanks for being here Meikah.
Okay if there's not a question in the room I'm going to go back to Marie Lys
um lastly what is the quote traditional role of the men there asking this because
you said women were doing so much of the work and most of it yes uh I would that's
why a big part of the reason I would love this study to continue on to answer that question
um I can only have observed um and you know didn't ask those questions necessarily directly
um there like I said is some help um uh in the garden um I would imagine being in the market
um but to be honest I saw less less work uh it's as far as the the gender load was concerned so
um answering that question would be definitely a good one to really dig
into what is done when they leave the farm and someone is still working back at the farm.
You know I I oh if uh alcoholism is a problem um I'm sorry I'm sorry
um yes um again I really can't speak to that I don't want to um like leap and make any
assumptions I I do think um drinking is pretty taboo at least in the uh region that I was in
um and so if that is a problem it was not talked about because it's just not um it was taboo I
attended a wedding and I saw that the groom was drinking and everyone uh in my car was kind of a
little bit of gas at that so that's why I imagine I maybe didn't hear about that um I can't good
question I would wonder if that's a problem as well uh but I can't speak to that. Okay here's
another one from Zoom this is Brendle Wolfe. Hello ! Did any of the following come up? Did any of the
women express any feelings about harnessing their Collective influence in the farming sector for
system changes in any way? Did they see their role as having influence prior or after this project?
um no that did not come up but I would um love to follow up as far as
um thinking about this as like a systematic change in their involvement with that as far
as moving forward for any kind of like gender empowering type of support or
um anything like that so good question but no that did not really come up in this study.
Okay so I'm in person although I also put it in the chat and my little Google doc so okay but
I waited till the end because of course I did mine even before you started and it's because
I'm so interested in qualitative methods and your use of photo voice and I have experienced
um you know issues around that so here's my question I wrote it out with most research in
agriculture being quantitative what obstacles um have you confronted in Academia with the
use of photo voice and how have you overcome them or address them? ah uh yes
um great question I definitely think in that in my especially in my position between this
Masters and this PhD definitely felt that as far as um uh working with funding sources and things
like that reporting being numbers is preferred Than Words um even though I love the words um
honestly as far as this method uh where I was at a m it was very highly received and I don't
I guess problems there I guess I didn't feel them um I um that there was a faculty member
on my committee that has done them before so I don't necessarily think it was anything new
um and um I think a lot of work in agriculture in international agriculture is quantitative
but I also definitely see uh wave and a shift towards the value of qualitative methods and so
um I think maybe it's it still happens you know you like hear different attitudes about things
um uh but I think I've heard less of that hopefully the wave
is moving and people are appreciating uh qualitative methods a little bit more so.
Can I add a just a word that's Dr Shannon Benn in the sociology Department who did her first
book working in Appalachia and Appalachian women's activism against big coal and she uh
used the photo story method so her book Is Our Roots Run Deep as iron weed 2013 and she talks
about her use of the photo story where again women photographed aspects of their lives Shannon Bell
that's her name and she's at Virginia Tech I have her book downloaded I know okay okay I
had just one other question because what were the sources of income for the men? um I believe the the
farm to the best of my ability there there may be some other small businesses but um the household
was subsistence farming uh both in generating their food and also their income okay thank you
okay the last one that I have from the chat was um from Rebecca Gianotti and it's it you
somewhat addressed it earlier but there might be a little bit more. So she asks I'm curious to know
if these recommendations were developed with the participants or if they came out of your
own Reflections afterwards in the focus groups did the women themselves propose recommendations for
what they want to see moving forward yeah so they specifically asked for uh like Technical Training
um but um that was a question in the in the interview
um not after analysis so as far as that version of recommendations like in the
scientific or in the in the research process no they unfortunately were not a part of
that but thinking ahead to Future research I think that's something I'd love to implement
okay there's actually a brand new one in in Zoom from a new person we haven't heard from
Kellie Del Signore. Okay hi Jessica! thanks for your presentation. Can you speak more
about extension in this area of Uganda since most trainings are geared towards men do you
know if they share any information with the women do the women learn
their agricultural technical skills from informal ways of learning thanks yes so I
uh traditionally aimed at men and I think that information gets disseminated through to women
um but then you know you're getting secondhand information that's not necessarily from an expert
and so that poses problems with any information withheld or just translated or given an example
um especially if things are done practically and Visually and and the uh woman's not attending
then she's not getting that critical aspect of the extension training so that's a major issue.
Yes if you're interested in if a person is interested in learning more how to do photo
voice, recommendation of a source. Wang and Burris I definitely think exploring
um uh more recent um and just like I said like this I've seen uh photo voice
um modified in many ways from the original um kind of seminal pieces of it and so I think
keeping up um through qualitative journals of just current applications of it be it outside
of your field the those those modifications could still be very powerful in whatever context you're
using them in so read up on your wing and verse but also just explore outside of your field
how the method's been used newly and with with Innovation um I saw one uh not too long ago where
the researcher did a photo voice and then also at the end um asked the participants to photograph
um how like the researcher in terms of how how they made the participants feel which again just
just a different like like people are constantly exploring with the method so um don't count those
new things out for sure. Jessica I think there's also um the Journal of visual anthropology if
you're familiar with it and again I have I have not seen it in a while but there might be you know
if it's current it might might have uh resources for you okay great suggestion thank you very much.
There's a new one here from Rebecca and um I'm just gonna wait for you all to speak
up sorry because you're behind me can't see so Rebecca asks in this part of Uganda had
these communities had other researchers come through before and if so was this method of
photo Voice new to them what'd they think of a study that used their perspectives in this way?
um like I said they reflected positively on the method itself and and getting to uh work
with the cameras and talk about um their stories as far as anyone else having previously employed
that method or specifically inquiring and into this I'm very much unaware of that so I'm not
going to say that that was the first time it may not be but um I did not hear of that so um no.
oh yeah um well thank you for this presentation I did miss some of it in the beginning but um
I've engaged in photo voice methodology in the past and I was wondering did you have any stories about
camera mishaps or you know cameras being lost in the field? Great question that was definitely
um a fear I also had the fear of like them being stolen or um harm being done to the women in order
to like steal um one um thankfully um Agnes also guided me that she did not think that that would
be a problem in that close community that everyone kind of knew each other. Thankfully I did not have
any camera mishaps I absolutely was was in fear of that so um I just I just didn't but I I've
absolutely seen many room for possibility of that happening. I think that my participants were very
kind to like take a lot of care of the cameras that they were using so I really appreciate the
uh care they had for the equipment. Okay I'm very new to photo voice but I really enjoyed the
presentation so I'm just wondering you said photo voice I have like an advantage of um aligned but
wants to determine the direction of research so I don't I just want to ask if there were pictures
you got from I mean photos that you got that were not originally in your research questions and
um if if there was a way you were able to explain the study to them without necessarily telling them
what to bring out from them. Yeah great question so the entire concept of the self-portraits or
the the the participants returning with photos of themselves was absolutely not something I
like asked for or thought would happen um and so that was the photo that was returned to me that I
was not expecting a lot that I were expecting were like the issues with the plants um and uh pictures
of their kids and and things like that that were a part of their lives um what's the second part
of your question Bowl I'm sorry are you able to explain you study to them without telling them
what to do yes yeah so um Agnes my translator was definitely very helpful with that but I
just explained that I was wanting to hear their stories as farmers and to get their perspective
through photos but I was just as I gave them the photos very careful not to tell them like uh any
advice on how to compose a photo or tell a story with a photo because I really wanted that to be
and as true to the method as as much their idea in every way as possible so I just guided them on
um like turning the camera on and off zooming in and out if they wanted to zoom and just literally
clicking and taking a photo and the ability to look back at their photos if they wanted to so
just basic camera operations was all I taught them but I explained this to them like where I
was from uh why you know being in school and what I was asking them as far as research and and what
a thesis you know and all that kind of stuff so and and just briefly about the method itself um
but didn't get too into asking them specifically for any kind of photos. Okay I'm just going to
interrupt the in person I just want you to know that we have the room another half hour and she
can hang out a little bit to chat and so I'm going to ask the last question that came on the zoom
um because I think they might get cut off or have to leave so anyway so this one was from Bernard
Walumbe. It says, great presentation Jessica! Did any of your study participants have issues with
their spouse's partners by participating in this study or having a camera? Great question, was also
very much a concern um and we did not that I know of that that wasn't expressed to me but I think
that was due to how we went about it and Agnes really advising me to uh work with the community
leaders um and that was a male Pastor in both communities um and when I asked for participants
and explained what the study was originally um their husbands were in the room as well so
that was not necessarily a mystery and when they when they volunteered that was with their husband
present so we did not have that as an issue but I could absolutely foresee how that was
um and uh notably when I had to get IRB approval I had to get the Ugandan governments our version of
IRB approval and I had to present this proposal at Gulu University in front of a panel and one
of the panelists asked me if I was going to or it said that I should get their husband's permission
on the consent forms um to which other panelists disagreed with him and that ended up not needing
to happen but that absolutely uh is not something that's that surprised me so yeah that was a day!
Regarding the trainings, technical Training uh most of the
farmers you indicate they have old age and they're doing this on the subsistence level
so what would be the training for if they are growing crops they've been growing for decades
kind of thing but training in the things they've been doing for what it is quite unusual. Training
for things they've been doing? Yeah you you say this the explicit required training technical
skills technical skills to do what because they work they are doing is what they've been doing
for? They're obviously already very skilled um absolutely but as as far as um for Pest Management
uh germination other issues they brought up as far as technical issues um training to combat those
those issues they're still facing would be my recommendation but yes they already are extremely
knowledgeable about many facets of agricultural production absolutely. Great question, thank you!
Okay I'm gonna ask one last one from zoom and then I'm gonna officially close and then you open chat.
um but we have um gosh we just have two more questions one is from Dickson Otieno. Great
presentation Jessica. Did you have any concerns about the communities being over researched? If
so how did you gain their trust to participate? Great question Dickson. Thank you for being here. I
um like I said I didn't know of any other research that had been done in those communities
um that's not to say that that hasn't been done that was not expressed to me by the
participants nor Community leaders nor Agnes who has been like I said
working in them for about 10 years. So my fear of over researching uh which wasn't
there for those communities specifically. What was the second part of this question?
um
okay I definitely think a huge amount of my trust came through
um working with Agnes who they they knew very well like. I said what if I would have not been
able to have done the study without that so that is huge recognition to to her and to build a hope.
Okay well I thank you very much. Applause everybody and I'm sorry to cut this off
and like I say those of you here can stay um but thank you all for attending and thank
you for your great work and thank you guys for being here presentation and your discussion
um as I said we send a short survey via the chat and also I think via email for everybody
who registered I want to say that our next event is in about a month on April 13th with
Nina Mukerjee Furstenau um you'll see information on that um it was it's on one
of the Flyers there and it's on our website and I'm sure that uh Lumbini who I didn't say who
is my GA. She's a PhD candidate in education I'm sure she's going to be sending the link to that
um but I also did not say that Jess that is our principles of community weak speaker as well as
our women's month speaker so that was very exciting to have this presentation for them.
Yeah thank you so and then also we have food and drinks and cups and so as you leave please
take everything that you would like and uh have a wonderful day and if you didn't sign in sign in on
your way out. So thank you thank you everyone for being here thank you to everyone on Zoom as well!
and you can come up and still talk to us.