Using Image-Based Research Methods in Vulnerable Populations as a Culturally Sensitive Approach: Ethical and Methodological Aspects

In psychology and social science, image-based methodologies (visual storytelling, photo-elicitation method, photo-walking, visual auto-ethnography) have been used as an innovative exploratory method for evaluating visual identities, life histories, and other collective features of local cultures. Visual and image-based methods offered great potential in developing bottom-up participatory research designs for inquiries, especially on vulnerable or disadvantaged subjects and communities. However, mainly for methodological concerns, image-based research remained with a limited status within the ‘orthodox’ word-based orientated landscape of qualitative paradigm. By using meta-synthesis of the recent literature, the territory covered by the present paper includes some applications of image-based methodologies as used in vulnerable populations. The main findings revealed an innovative galaxy of empirically-based methods that can be fruitfully used to integrate more “orthodox” quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method designs. Implications from this methodological design’s practical use were finally discussed, particularly in terms of decolonization of research practices and ethical aspects to guide practitioners’ research in challenging contexts and vulnerable populations.