Using Innovative Qualitative Research Methods in Vulnerable Populations: Image-Based Research as Culturally Sensitive Approach

In psychology and social science, visual research methods (VRM); visual storytelling, photo-elicitation method, photo-walking, visual auto-ethnography) have been used as an innovative exploratory approach for evaluating visual-identities, life histories, and other collective features of local cultures (Prosser & Schwartz, 1998; Reavey, & Brown, 2021;). In many cases, visual and image-based methods offer great potential in developing bottom-up, participatory (Baumann et al., 2019) and innovative research designs with vulnerable or disadvantaged communities (Zuev & Bratchford, 2021). However, mainly for methodological reasons, VRM remained with a limited status within the 'orthodox' word-based orientated landscape of qualitative paradigms (Pau-wels, 2000). Informed by a review of recent literature, the terrain covered by the pre-sent chapter includes some examples of innovative applications of VRM with vulnera-ble communities (e.g., communities in rural South-Africa, children living in low-intensity warfare contexts, South Asian women). Based on our empirical work, we ar-gue that the adoption of VRM offers four distinct benefits,: a) they help in gathering richer research materials, b) the methods favor the inclusion of a third layer (e.g. visu-al) of raw data in addition to other traditional sources (e.g. lexical and numerical), c) they address the topic of power relations between researcher and participant and d) they promote bottom-up participatory approaches with specific communities. Implications from this methodological design's practical use will also be discussed, particularly in terms of the decolonization of research practices and ethical aspects to guide practitioners' research in challenging contexts working with vulnerable popula-tions.