Photovoice and participatory video is a visual method whereby the participants produce their own audio-visual soundbites, and the storytelling resides with the community themselves. Through this British Council-supported collaboration, we assisted the participants in putting forward their stories based on the photos and videos they sent throughout the project.
Below is some background to the participant's daily life, translated by Khin Lin Naing (2023) with minor edits by Dr Britta Boyer.
Photovoice participant: Ma Su Su
Ma Su Su lives in Nyaung Shwe Township with her family and has 4 family members; a son, daughter and husband. She is 42 years old and started working with weaving at age 12 years old until now; she has 30 years of weaving experience. She has been weaving traditional Inle Longyies with her own loom, at home and before she was married, she worked in the Mya Sak Kyar weaving business with her friend Ma Aye.
Ma Su Su can weave one longyi in about 2.5 or 3 days. She also works [doing the family] cooking and washing. Her husband has his own boat that he hires and drives.
Their home is near the monastery and they always endow with prayer with the monk at least one time per month. They like to watch TV together, at night, for about 2 hours. Ma Su Su does not use social media (Facebook, Viber, others) and their [family] lifestyle is simple.
She was interested to participate and the photos were shared over a secure communication platform. Her daughter assisted the project by sending their photovoice contributions. The names have been changed for safety.
The following questions arose during the weekly design conversations with our (UAL) MA Regenerative Design student cohort as we started to see the participant photos and have questions on both their intended meaning and the daily lives. Khin Lin Naing (Pochi) helped to ask our questions and translate between ourselves and the photovoice particiapants.
Q1. When is the best time to weave? Could they give us an example of what her day looks like – for example, what time does she wake up? Cook and for how many and how many times a day? take children to school? do the gardening, how many hours of weaving etc? Is weaving her main source of income?
She wakes up normally about 6 am, cooks food for a day (sometimes twice a day) for about 1.5 hours. She prepares breakfasts with her daughter and they all eat together; she then takes her son to school by motor bike which is a 15 minute [journey].
She returns home to weave from about 9 am to 4pm, then takes a lunch time break for 1 hour; her total weaving time is about 6 hours. After that, she waters her garden with her husband. She goes to the market 1 time in 5 days [it takes about 10 minutes by motor bike].
The weaving is not their main income but it can help her family. Her husband is a boat driver and her daughter, a mobile phone sales staff; both brings an income [to the family].
Q2. What types of TV do they enjoy watching?
They enjoy Channel 7 movie line.