Interrogating the ethics of visual methods: A critical disability studies critique of photovoice

Photovoice is widely regarded as a critical participatory method that promotes social change by centering the visual narratives of marginalized communities. This paper offers a methodological and epistemological critique of photovoice grounded in critical disability studies, examining the ethical tensions that arise from its reliance on visibility as a pathway to recognition and social change. Drawing on the concept of ocularnormativity, we argue that photovoice reproduces dominant hierarchies of knowledge by relying on a postpositivist epistemology that equates visual imagery with legitimacy, and by relying on visual tropes of dysfunction, decay, and debility to signify harm. These tropes rely on disability aesthetics to make oppression legible to a wider audience, but with ethical consequences rarely acknowledged in the literature. Using cripistemology as a guiding framework, we interrogate how photovoice, as a participatory visual method, risks reinscribing ableist ideologies. Rather than simply reform the method, we ask researchers to imagine how cripping photovoice may better align the method with the aims of disability justice. This paper contributes to ongoing conversations about the ethics of representation and accessibility in qualitative research.