A Research Project, Not a Program: Culture of Care in Photovoice Research with Black Girls

Black girls in Kentucky are hyper-minoritized. This marker gives others the notion that Black girls are abnormal, in need of programming, and incapable of narrating their own existence. The D.O.P.E. Black Girl Research Collective—an intergenerational, interdisciplinary research collective comprised of community-centered researchers at the University of Kentucky, Berea College, and the Lexington Housing Authority – conducted an 18-month Photovoice research study alongside Black girls in central Kentucky to examine how and in what ways Black girls define their lives in a post-2020 climate—that is, after the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery amidst the explosion of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using bell hooks’ “talking back” framing, this paper outlines a Photovoice methodological approach to conducting research by, for, and with Black girls pushed to the margins in a Southern locale. Our collective research revealed the distinct ways in which Black girls “talk back” while sustaining a culture of collective care.