Co-Creating Dialogic Space Through Photovoice: Illustrating Perceptions of Fear and Hope...

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Co-Creating Dialogic Space Through Photovoice: Illustrating Perceptions of Fear and Hope of Two Types of Business Owner in a Gentrifying Area James Sharp University of Texas at Arlington

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Abstract Visual evidence of gentrification in historic business corridors portend changes coming to the area. Perceptions of hope and fear among owners regarding the effects of gentrification may differ greatly between longtime merchants and recently established businesses. This inquiry seeks to study perceptions among two categories of business owners experiencing effects of gentrification and change at Jefferson Boulevard in Dallas, Texas. Participating business owners will represent longtime stewards and recent pioneering opportunists using the photovoice method to establish a common dialogic space for visual representations of perspective and belief among individuals of the two groups. The photovoice approach will offer equity of voice and a forum to cultivate more meaningful understanding, empathy, and mutual respect across both categories of business owners.

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Co-Creating Dialogic Space Through Photovoice: Illustrating Perceptions of Fear and Hope of Two Types of Business Owner in a Gentrifying Area

Introduction Built during the first half of the Twentieth Century, the Jefferson Boulevard business corridor in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas is one of the city’s few intact main street-style urban boulevards. A major retail destination during the 1950s and 60s, the pandemic decline of urban areas in the United States in the 1970s segued Jefferson Boulevard into an era of transformation.

Over the last 40 years, most of the retail spaces have been occupied by small businesses catering to Hispanic, and mostly Mexican, communities (Stone, 2016).

In the last decade, the Oak Cliff area has prospered, with areas like the Bishop Arts District evolving into regional destinations. Although wide-scale redevelopment of Jefferson Boulevard has lagged behind nearby Bishop Arts, investments in Jefferson within the last five years by the city and developers are bringing a significant transition of streetscapes and retail spaces that attract more affluent patrons (Stone). The city’s 2012 Bond Program included about $1.5 million for capital improvements to the Jefferson corridor. Using those funds, the city developed a concept to reinvent a portion of Jefferson Boulevard as a ‘Las Ramblas’ style market, named for a famous pedestrian boulevard located in Barcelona, Spain. The original Las Ramblas was developed by maintaining vehicular traffic along its edges while providing a larger median as a pedestrian boulevard (City Design Studio).

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As with most areas that experience a transition to higher real estate values, there is anticipation that rental rates for retail and commercial office space in the area will rise significantly. Although the Las Ramblas vision of a revitalized thoroughfare celebrates the corridor’s Hispanic heritage, recent re-developments have brought retail and restaurant concepts that cater to more affluent clientele than the typical Hispanic and Mexican-American families that patron the long term establishments within the corridor.

Overview of the Problem Although growth in a redeveloping retail-oriented district is generally a positive outcome of public and private investment, there is a risk that rising values of space and changing consumer demographics will be detrimental to long term small business merchants (Meltzer, 2016, 22-3). For members of a group under possible threat, a means for effective communication and expression is essential to the agency of those endangered members. For long time merchants and business owners in the Jefferson Boulevard corridor, how do they perceive changes or stagnation occurring around their places of businesses? Likewise, how do owners of recently established businesses in the corridor perceive issues of change and stagnation? What are the issues in which the perspectives of longtime stewards and pioneering opportunities align in similarity? Conversely, what are the issues in which perceptions are antithetical?

Although an association of Jefferson corridor merchants exists, there is no common forum for these merchants to express and interrelate concerns with each other in a common and equitable format. There is also a possibility that the interests of longtime businesses and the interests of businesses that have recently opened in the Jefferson corridor may not be congruent, creating potential for an unstable and fractured vision for the corridor. It it potentially significant

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to establish a forum to enhance mutual understanding among the merchant group regarding perceptions of hope and fear related to the transformative changes occurring within the Jefferson corridor.

Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study will be to increase understanding of the perceptions of change and stagnation at Jefferson Boulevard between two categories business owners: native stewards (long-term owners in business more than five years) and pioneering opportunists (recent business owners, with less than five years in business on Jefferson) by using the photovoice method to establish a common dialogic space for participants. Utilized prominently by social and health researchers Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris, photovoice studies offer a visual portrayal of a person’s experience and personal knowledge that may be difficult to convey with words (Wang & Burris, 1997). Photovoice provides a common format for research participants to visualize their perceptions regarding issues that impact their lives (Close, 2007).

The Jefferson Corridor study will blend several constructivist epistemological approaches including interpretive, critical, and intuitive in pursuit of visual representations of perspective and belief among individuals of the two groups, providing equity of voice among participants.

Conceptually, gentrification as addressed by participants of the study will be generally understood as any activity that brings perceptible change to the economic processes related to investments and the production of commercial space (Redfern, 2003, 2357). Although the primary social construct of the issue is concentrated on the perceived changes that attract more economic activity, issues propagated by social or economic stagnation and neglect may also figure prominently. This study will address the research question: How do the perceptions of

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change and stagnation align and differ between longtime business owners and owners of recently established businesses in the Jefferson Boulevard corridor?

Working through established networks provided by the city council member representing the Jefferson corridor and the merchant association, the study will seek to engage business owners in both categories to participate by taking photographs that represent their perceptions of Jefferson Boulevard's attributes today as it affects their business interests from both positive and negative perspectives. Owners will capture images that represent what they find most positive and hopeful about the corridor today. Additionally, participants will photograph subjects that represent negative aspects of the corridor. In the second phase of the exercise, participants will be interviewed while reviewing the photographs they took to discuss the subjective meaning behind the subjects represented in the images.

Ultimately, the photovoice study is intended to offer equity of voice and a forum to cultivate more meaningful understanding, empathy, and mutual respect across both categories of business owners. The study will potentially produce a conduit between decision-makers and merchants that improves understanding of the perceptions of both longtime stewards and recently established businesses in the Jefferson corridor. Through the participant-curated collection of photographs and the elaborations gathered from the interviews, decision-makers may recognize and acknowledge previously unacknowledged issues that challenge merchants, and foster action to stimulate improvements (Wang and Burris, 1994).

Literature Review After an earnest review of published original and secondary research articles, the insight gained from the literature review underscores a general lack of focus on business owners in

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existing research of gentrification topics. Furthermore, there is little focus on the perceptions of longtime business owners and recently established business owners in relation to gentrification occurring in a business corridor. It appears the photovoice methodology has not been used for the specific purpose of creating an equitable dialogic space to increase understanding among business owners co-located in the same business corridor. Finally, gentrification of the Jefferson Boulevard Corridor is a real-life issue that has not been sufficiently investigated from a scholarly perspective.

Lack of Research Focus on Business Owners and Gentrification Based on the initial research review, homeowners and other residential scenarios tend to be the focus of majority of existing scholarly activity investigating gentrification. Richard Ocejo, a recognized authority of gentrification, acknowledges commercial developments are an “understudied facet of gentrification� (Ocejo, 285). Trenessa L. Williams and Charles R. Needham interviewed small business owners in Harlem to explore the issue of gentrification and the perceptions of business owners on gentrification. The study comprised a sample of 20 Harlem small business owners helped uncover how gentrification affected the small business community of Harlem. (Williams et al, 2).

The authors contend that using a real-life situation as a case study in research helps in understanding circumstances when gathering and examining data collected from complex research questions answered by the participants of the research study. Their case study design focused on the influence gentrification has on a small business owner. The author argues that other research methods would not allow an opportunity to look at the issue of gentrification and small business owners (4).

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Similar to residents, gentrification can have negative impacts on small business owners and merchants. Rising rents can force businesses to relocate from spaces leased from property owners who must increase rates to offset rising property tax fees. Gentrification compels residents and small business owners alike to determine the feasibility of staying in a location where higher rent prices directly impact profitability (6). Often gentrification can lead to displacement of residents and small business owners. Gentrification inherently implies replacement of longtime residents by outsiders who move into an area where once attractive properties have now declined because of disinvestment (1).

Williams and Needham utilized a set of open-ended questions to allow spontaneous and in-depth responses from participants (4). They acknowledge the significance that the validity of the research tools in measuring the phenomenon under investigation, which directly impacts the accuracy of the research. Validity, in the context of a qualitative study, is defined as the extent to which data are credible (5). Williams and Needham also advocate the necessity of triangulation in the achievement of validity. It’s worthwhile to consider the necessity of incorporating a second investigation method to the study should be considered. However, the photography component of this study is supported by a participant dialogue collected during a photo review interview. Here, the participants elaborate on the meaningfulness of the subjects that were photographed. Those explanations enhance the visual representation captured in the photography. The dialogue provides a separate and tandem mechanism of expression even if the narrative is focused on the product of the photovoice method.

Ocejo also contends that more attention should be devoted to understanding the perspective of gentrifiers themselves and their roles in changing the identities of local areas

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(285-6). His article, “The Early Gentrifier: Weaving a Nostalgia Narrative on the Lower East Side” centers on ethnographic data collected on the gentrified Lower East Side of Manhattan to illustrate how early gentrifiers use a nostalgia narrative to construct a new local identity as the neighborhood’s symbolic owners. A nostalgia narrative is an example of collective memory or a social construction of the past that is specifically triggered by a sense of loss (286). A nostalgia narrative is an “imagined story of the past that deliberately selects certain elements from personal history while excluding others to construct a version that is more favorable than the reality.”

Ocejo argues that nostalgia narrative is used when residents or business owners sense that their attachments to a place and their future in a place are under threat (287). Early gentrifiers generally understand they are newcomers but do not acknowledge the contradiction of moving to a gentrifying neighborhood with a desire to prevent its gentrification and maintain an authenticity to which they never contributed (288). Early gentrifiers use nostalgia differently from longtime residents and merchants. They weave their personal experiences with longtime residents and local places with their experiences and contributions to its authenticity, which is highly significant to their new local identity as symbolic owners (293).

Using Photovoice to Establish Dialogic Space In tandem with reviewing recent relevant research focused on gentrification from a business owner’s perspective, it’s useful to understand how the photovoice method has been used in recent qualitative investigations relating to the perspectives of participants and their communities. Initially developed to understand Yunnan Chinese women’s experiences (Wang, Burris, & Ping, 1996), researchers have used photovoice as a qualitative method to investigate social inequities in collaboration with marginalized communities. This approach to participatory

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action can also instill a sense of agency and empowerment, offering participants a means to communicate regarding injustice or lack of representation. Photovoice has become a popular method for critical qualitative inquiry. It’s also a useful catalytic tool to spur development of needs assessments, conduct evaluations, and catalyze awareness for policy change (Tanjasiri, 656).

In “A Critical Geographic Approach to Youth Civic Engagement: Reframing Educational Opportunity Zones and the Use of Public Spaces,” photovoice is used as the conduit for dialogue with children about the ways in which educational opportunity zones might be reconsidered. The research team asks participating students to take pictures and present their ideas and recommendations to public officials in an effort not only to increase the students’ literacy-based activity outside of school, but to provide a means of expression of their perceptions of their surroundings (167).

Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani’s article, “Bringing their worlds back: using photographs to spur conversations on everyday place,” uses visual strategies like photovoice and community video-making practices to build community self-knowledge through participant-produced photographs and video (2). In her approach, Bendiner-Viari presented participants with another person’s photographic representations of the participants’ community. She observed that the experience enabled both persons to look more closely, and to understand the unique perspective of the other of these familiar places. When most successful, she explained, the conversations over the photographs suspended the “taken-for-grantedness” aspect of observing everyday places, and allowed participants to gain more depth (5).

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In “From madres to mujeristas: Latinas making change with photovoice," the authors argue that employing mothers to adopt an empowered perspective as a mujerista, or Latina womanist, through photovoice can provide agency to members of disadvantaged or marginalized groups (302). For the study, photovoice is used as a participatory action approach to enable groups of woman to think over their collective experiences by reflecting upon community needs, to examine current issues of concern by encouraging reflection, and to reach policy-makers efficiently by the collaborative efforts of institutional representatives. It gave participants the opportunity to use photography as a means to begin conversations relevant to community concerns (302). These community concerns are brought to policy-makers’ attention via a public showing of the photographs to spur social transformation (302-3). The researchers note that the photovoice can be challenged if facilitators fail to gain community trust, or to adequately engage community members. Furthermore, even carefully managed projects may create difficulties for community organizations if the results convey difficult realities or conflicting insight (303).

In “Using Photovoice to Assess and Promote Environmental Approaches to Tobacco Control in AAPI Communities,” the authors underscore the aims using photovoice as a qualitative approach: to empower and engage community residents to share their concerns through the photographs, to use the photographs as the catalyst for group discussions about community issues, and to share their photographs with policy makers and other community residents to create positive community changes (656).

As a means to illustrate personal perspective from a population, photovoice is a particularly effective approach. Deni Ruggeri’s “The ‘My Mission Viejo’ Project. Investigating the Potential of Photovoice Methods in Place Identity and Attachment Research,” was conducted

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in tandem with the City of Mission Viejo’s 20th anniversary of its incorporation as a city. To commemorate the occasion, city leaders embarked on a community-based photovoice effort, which asked residents to take pictures of places that best represented Mission Viejo’s place identity and to ‘capture their personal reflections of what Mission Viejo means to them’ (124).

In “Overtown: neighbourhood, change, challenge and “invironment,” facilitators Eileen Smith-Cavros and Emily Eisenhauer sought to examine how residents of Overtown viewed their community. The Photovoice effort sought to discover a wide view of aspects of the community that residents perceived as positive and worth preserving, and what they saw as negative and undesirable (385). The authors believed that this approach to “visual anthropology and qualitative methodology” to address these broad questions would allow people to look at their community through a literal and metaphorical lens and to speak more fully with their own voices. Photovoice also enabled the authors to combine visual data from the residents’ photographs with residents’ narratives (385-6).

Finally, the facilitators who applied the photovoice method for a qualitative study of community perceptions of public health problems pose an existentialist question to the research community regarding photovoice. In their article, “Photovoice as a Method for Revealing Community Perceptions of the Built and Social Environment,” they ask, is the photovoice method appropriate for broadly understanding community perceptions, or are the results only specific to the individual participant, contextualized by the individual’s setting in the community (Nykiforuk, 117)?

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Methodology As addressed in the review of literature, there is a dearth of qualitative inquiry regarding gentrification issues from the perspective of business owners. Furthermore, missing from the current photovoice literature is an application and evaluation of photovoice as a method for research and as a method for presenting perceptions of gentrification-oriented change from business owners. This study will endeavor to address these gaps by using the photovoice method to examine perceptions from longtime merchants and recently established business owners. In previous research studies, photovoice has been used to provide agency to groups who lack the power, influence and confidence to literally speak up regarding issues of social justice and inequality. Photovoice serves to galvanize underrepresented persons, providing a format to visually represent perceptions when words might be far more difficult to convey.

The proposed study will utilize photovoice for a different purpose: to create a dialogic space between two similar groups: merchants and business owners in the Jefferson Boulevard corridor, delineated by the length of time doing business thus far within the corridor. The study’s basis presumes that perceptions of change in the corridor between these two categories of merchants and business owners may be significantly different. Furthermore, the study will seek to identify tendencies of perception alignment within each category. The study will also consider and assess possible perception alignments that may occur among multiple participants in both categories.

The Jefferson Corridor study methodology will incorporate the photovoice process for a target population for participation defined by the spatial location of the business within the Jefferson Boulevard corridor between Polk and Beckley avenues.

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This study follows the three-stage process that is epitomical of photovoice: selecting, contextualizing and codifying (Wang and Burris, 1997). Participants will not only select the subjects they photograph, they will also select the most meaningful images among the photographs they produced. They will contextualize those images in their own words, providing insight to their motivations for choosing the subjects photographed, and to elaborate on the perceived meaning of the subjects. Finally, the participants will shape the framework of the study by contributing themes represented in their photo subjects. These themes will be the fundamental basis of subject coding in the comparative analysis between the two categories of participants.

For the participants, photovoice can be a unifying mechanism to create representation of community needs that is understandable to leaders and policy-makers (374). For the facilitator, the photographs and the dialogue stemming from the photographs offer a potentially useful medium for gathering expressions of individual perspective in a common format.

Participants will be recruited through the Jefferson Boulevard Merchant Association, the Jefferson Boulevard Alliance, and select community activists. The goal is to recruit a minimum 10 individuals representing longtime business interests in the corridor for more than five years.

Likewise, a minimum of 10 new merchants who have been doing business in the corridor less than five years will be recruited. Both categories of merchants will receive the same information and direction for the study.

Participation: Phase One Participants will be asked to review and sign a participant consent form (See Appendix A). Each participant will be provided a disposable camera. Participants will have one week to accomplish the photography mission: photograph places and things in the corridor that they feel

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represent the best of Jefferson Boulevard (hope), as well as places and things that that they feel indicate possible negative changes for the future (fear). Participants will be encouraged to interpret the photography mission in any way.

The study facilitator will collect each camera upon completion of the photography mission to have the film developed and printed. Each camera will be coded with the initials of the business name to ensure the developed prints are correctly matched with the participant. The facilitator will schedule a follow-up interview with each participant to discuss the subject choices in the photographs.

Participation: Phase Two The follow-up interview is intended to last approximately 20 minutes, is semi-structured, and held at the participant’s place of business or another location chosen by the participant (See Appendix B for the interview process description document). During the interview, the facilitator will lay out all of the images taken by the participant randomly. The facilitator will ask the participant to choose no more than five photographs that are the most meaningful to the participant in terms of what’s positive and hopeful at Jefferson Boulevard. The facilitator will pull these images from the layout and assign an identifier to each of these images by placing a numbered green dot on the back of each photograph. Next, the participant will be asked to explain what makes each of these images meaningful as a positive or hopeful representation. The facilitator will write down the phrases and keywords said by the participant.

For the second part of the interview, the participant will return to the remaining photographs in the layout to choose no more than five of the prints that are the most meaningful to the participant in terms of what’s negative, or things that make the participant feel fear from

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their perspective as a business owner at Jefferson Boulevard. The facilitator will pull these images from the layout and assign an identifier to each of these images by placing a red dot on the back of each photograph. The next step is to ask them to elaborate about each choice regarding why the image represents negativity or fear. Again, the facilitator will write down as much as possible to capture each response. Each response will be aligned to its respective image by associating the dot color and number placed on each image.

Participation: Phase Three The study should ultimately conclude with a public exhibition of the most meaningful photographs identified by the participants, with no delineation of the photographers’ identity or business ownership category. Written summaries based on the facilitator’s interview notes will accompany each photograph. The final act of curation will be to group images of hope on one side of the space and images of fear on the opposite side of the space, inferring that the hopes and fears of fellow merchants are equally relevant, regardless of differences of perception.

Through the interpretive expression of perception through photovoice, the submissions should reveal degrees of alignment and misalignment among business owners. It will be potentially useful to better understand how factors of fear and hope are distributed across the spectrum of business owners, and between the categories of native stewards and pioneering opportunists. The study should be an insightful contribution to the canon of knowledge in economic and community development and urban planning, demonstrating how opening a dialogic space through a co-curated visual representation will cultivate more meaningful understanding, empathy, and mutual respect across both categories of merchants and business owners.

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Study Approach and Data Collection As the study model initially developed, there was an expectation that the Jefferson Boulevard Merchants Association was an active organization with high levels of participation among business owners. The recruitment strategy relied heavily on the ability to access a significant percentage of merchants at an association meeting or through a widely adopted communication channel for association members. However, participation among business owners in the association has waned considerably in recent years, with no regular gatherings or widely shared communication channels. During an introductory interview with Nick Cordova, the longtime owner of the CharcoBroiler restaurant who is widely considered a patriarchal figure in the area, he advised that the only effective way to inform and recruit Jefferson Boulevard business owners is a “face-to-face, door-to-door� effort.

In the early development of the methodology, considerations were made regarding the device to produce the photographs. Although asking participants to use the camera device on their mobile phones may be more convenient for some, it may alienate other participants who do not have a mobile device with a camera. Furthermore, digital photography creates further challenges in delivering the images to the facilitator. Participants may not be comfortable sending images via email or text. As an equalising measure, disposable cameras were chosen as the photography device. Each participant would be assigned a camera with the same number of exposures. Upon completion of the photomission, the facilitator will collect the cameras and process the film.

Initially, 20 businesses were identified as most likely to participate based on existing relationships and connections with the study facilitator. In the effort to propose the study to each

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of these business owners, about half of the businesses identified were unresponsive or unavailable when contacted. Others seemed wary of the facilitator’s motivations and purpose for the study and did not agree to participate. By April 4, 2018, five business owners agreed to participate. Each of these five business owners commenced the first phase of participation. Each were assigned a disposable camera, a photomission description, camera use instructions, and consent form. By the April 15 deadline, only three business owners completed the photography mission. To commence the second phase of participation, interviews were scheduled the week of April 16. However, one business owner did not commit to scheduling an interview. By April 23, only two participants were able to complete the participation process.

Of the two participating business owners, both established their businesses on Jefferson Boulevard less than five years ago. One owner is a lifelong resident of the Oak Cliff area with a deep personal connection to Jefferson Boulevard. The other owner is not a resident of Oak Cliff and does not have a strong personal connection to Jefferson Boulevard. Although the research question does not address associations with the Jefferson corridor beyond business ownership, based on initial comparative analysis of the photo subjects and descriptions of the participants, it’s very likely personal connections and histories related to Jefferson Boulevard significantly influence the perceptions of business owners.

Analysing and Coding the Data For the study, there are three primary components of participant data. The photographs comprise the first component. The second data component consists of the data gathered from the interviews. Finally, the length of time in business in the Jefferson corridor to define each business in either the longtime owner or recently established owner categories.

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The subjects in the photographs were codified by the participants into one of two supercategories: positive/hopeful or negative/fearful. The facilitator completed an analysis of both the photographs and the information provided in the interviews to identify thematic codes to further categorize the issues represented in both the positive and negative categories. From the two completed interviews, a number of initial codes were identified: ● Cultural and Historical: subjects that represent or convey personally meaningful aspects of local culture or historical significance; ● Local Representation and Authenticity: subjects that represent or convey local color and character, identifiable community idiosyncrasies, or commemorations of persons, events or values with distinct connections to the area; ● Externalities of Other Businesses: evidence of negative impacts created or perpetuated by other business entities that affect businesses or persons at Jefferson Boulevard; ● Neglect or Degradation of Public Assets: evidence of poor conditions of shared infrastructure; ● Social Justice: subjects that are perceived to challenge the equitable distribution of services, resources, and opportunities to all individuals; and ● Community and Economic Vitality: Evidence of economic healthiness and connection between businesses and patrons.

A full study with a larger and more representative pool of participants will include an analysis of dialogue between longtime business owners on Jefferson who have been in business more than five years, and business owners who have been established on Jefferson for less than

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five years. Again, both business owners who completed the full photovoice process established their businesses on Jefferson less than five years ago.

Relating to the Data Although the photovoice method has a strong subjective basis as a conduit for individual perception, the foundation of the study lay in the anticipated overlap of commonalities among individual perceptions. Constructivist grounded theory favors constructions of understanding through experience and reflections on those experiences (Denzen and Lincoln, 417). This study relies on the participant to reconcile their values and experience as a business owner to interpret conditions and situations as positive or negative. In the process of participating in the study, business owners are actively creating more knowledge and, thus, should enhance their understanding. They contribute to the process of increasing understanding as participants rather than as subjects.

As the study’s focus is to unify the perceptions of both business owner types, the images and captions of each participant will be presented in an intermingled fashion within in the two categories of positivity/hope and negativity/fear. As a demonstration, the work of the two participating business owners is featured in the following section in the format intended by the study. The identities of the participants remain confidential and, for the purpose of this study, irrelevant for the purpose of creating a dialogic space to represent individual perceptions in a communal context.

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Perspectives Of Hope and Positivity “The Texas Theater is such a positive fixture. It’s so active, so vibrant and a big part of what's possible for Jefferson” (Cultural and Historical, Community Vitality, Local Representation and Authenticity)

“Saw the different offerings from the center. It seems to draw in people. Positive, a great place for people to come. So much color to the place. It’s live and bright, it attracts people.” (Cultural and Historical, Community Vitality, Local Representation and Authenticity)

“Focused on the Hispanic community, lots of events. It opens the door to a lot of people who might not come here otherwise. Great place to look at culture. Lots of community leaders come here.” (Community Vitality, Local Representation and Authenticity)

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“People out on the sidewalks and eating” (Community Vitality)

“The building is great, and the lofts inside represent people, life at Jefferson, and customers! The area will come even more alive with people. This area will be home for people.” (Community Vitality)

“Selena has a history here at Jefferson. She came here to have her quinceanera photographs taken. This represents the cultural aspect of this area.” (Cultural and Historical, Local Representation and Authenticity)

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“Texas Theater is a cultural symbol as well. It’s also an important place in Dallas history.” (Cultural and Historical)

“This is the Bishop Arts area. I love that everything is locally owned.

These are mom and pop shops. Unique and local. There are no ChikFil-a’s here. This was created by and for families that live in the area. This is more of what we want at Jefferson in the future.” (Community Vitality, Local Representation and Authenticity)

Perspectives of Fear and Negativity “Some areas have a lack of upkeep. Who’s responsible for areas like these? The area around us is kept up well, but there's not enough upkeep in some areas.” (Business Generated Externalities, Neglect or Degradation of Public Assets)

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“Not a fan of these bikes. I'm also not a fan of the meters. It can be challenging for customers, who feel they always need to pay to park.” (Business Generated Externalities, Neglect or Degradation of Public Assets)

“I’m not sure I should say this, but this is a dirty place. Not a good fixture for the neighborhood. The outside is not clean. The inside is not clean.” (Business Generated Externalities)

“Very telling. Even though there’s available space for new business, the owner needs to clean it up. It doesn't reflect Jefferson well. I hear from some customers who experience this on their way to come to our store. It forms negative impressions.” (Business Generated Externalities)

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“Potholes. There are way too many on this side of town. If you go north, you don’t see potholes.

It makes it seem not as nice as other parts of town.” (Business Generated Externalities, Social Justice)

“There are way too many of these fly-by-night insurance companies in the area. They take advantage of immigrants and families who have very little income. They promise really low liability insurance, and then when something happens, they don’t cover anything. The same with these credit stores. They keep people down. Many families here have to make the choice to get car insurance or take their family out for dinner.

Sometimes people make

bad

choices, but people want to

take

care of their families and treat them to dinner every once in a while instead of paying for legit auto insurance.” (Business Generated Externalities, Social Justice) Issues and Weaknesses in the Technique Although the full study with a representative population of participants could not be completed, the demonstration using two selected participants enabled the facilitator to apply the methodology and consider its limitations and weaknesses.

Significant Time and Resources Required

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First, and perhaps most importantly, the demonstration proved that photovoice is a time- and resource-intensive method. For this study, there was a significant commitment of time required for recruitment. It can be a challenge to engage prospective participants to participate, to sort and analyze the data to ensure that the photographs and dialogue accurately portray the intentions of the participants (Wang & Burris, 1997).

Each business owner had to be approached at their place of business. In many cases, business owners did not have set schedules and the days and times they would be available varied widely. With each prospective participant, time to discuss the study concept and participant expectations was essential. Participants needed enough time to complete the photomisson with respect to their schedules. For the participants who completed the photomission, it took at least ten days of all of them to complete the task. The time to process the film was five business days. The follow-up interview was then scheduled with the participant to review the images. Although Wang and Burris (1997) proposed the focus group method, the study facilitator opted for the individual approach to alleviate concerns with having enough participants available at once and to ensure participant anonymity to encourage openness and honesty among participants. In addition to the time commitment required of the participants, further implications for participation is discussed later in this section.

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The use of disposable cameras was a relatively significant financial cost for the study.

The purchase of 20 disposable cameras cost nearly $110. The cost to develop conventional film averaged nearly $20 per camera. To complete a full study of 20 participants would require nearly $500 for the direct costs of additional cameras and film development.

Building Trust with Prospective Participants In the facilitator’s role to recruit participants, there were additional challenges to establishing connections and building rapport with potential participants. First, a significant number of merchants at Jefferson Boulevard speak Spanish only or are not comfortable conducting business in English. The language barrier is perhaps the most obvious challenge.

However, there are also cultural and even politically oriented barriers that stem from established networks among business owners and families associated with business interests. The facilitator’s status as a Caucasian who primarily speaks English can be a deterrent to connecting with merchants who are not accustomed to, or have no desire to, doing business with persons outside their trusted social networks. Thus, a full study will be challenged to engage with and recruit a representative population of merchants. Establishing allies who are accepted within these social networks to lobby on behalf of the study could remedy this issue.
 Among merchants who were successfully engaged and asked to participate, two displayed initial distrust for the facilitator and the study process. These merchants expressed concerns that the study would be provided to the city government and that they were at risk of being exposed if they singled out an entity in a negative way.

Photomission Creep

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The initial photovoice demonstration indicates a high probability that some participants will misunderstand the objectives of the photomission or deliberately complete the photomission using different objectives. One participant of the demonstration photographed a number of subjects located outside the Jefferson Boulevard corridor although the oral and written photomission expressly limited subjects to be located on Jefferson Boulevard. The participant’s intention was not necessarily to disregard the photomission objective. His intentions, rather, were to creatively illustrate idyllic representations of positivity that he would like to see more of on Jefferson Boulevard. However, its occurence portends the likelihood that the photomission will be subject to interpretation.
 Usefulness in Business Owner Context The initial concept for this qualitative study is based on the possibility that owners of businesses tied to a fixed spatial location may feel powerless against the changes occuring in the area. Through the facilitator’s initial interviews and through the work created in the demonstration, it seems likely that most successful business owners have agency to maintain their business under changing conditions, and have the option to relocate their business if necessary. Nick Cordova of the CharcoBroiler restaurant emphasized that there are a number of businesses at Jefferson that never seem to last long. Those business owners tend to fail quickly and leave or they open a variety of business concepts, one after another, with no lasting success.

Cordova commented that there have always been business owners like that regardless of the state of change occurring on Jefferson.

For those businesses that are doing well, is photovoice a useful mechanism to spur desired change? Successful business owners are likely to have the social and political capital to

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influence matters to their advantage. If this is true, is photovoice simply an exercise of photographing things owners like and dislike at the moment? If business owners are empowered to influence change through social and political influence, do they need a mechanism to express their hopes and fears for Jefferson Boulevard in chorus with other merchants?

Inadequacies of Time in Business The study’s purpose is to examine how perceptions align or differ between long-term business owners and owners of recently established businesses. However, length of time in business is one of several potentially compelling variables that influence perception. Perceptions may be forged within a complex combination of factors in addition to the length of time that a participant has been a business owner at Jefferson Boulevard. A business owner’s age, socioeconomic background, education, ethnicity are other possible influences among others.

Conclusions While the initial participatory demonstration revealed a number of potential weaknesses and challenges, the impacts of the study using a well-represented population of merchants will not likely be understood before the study is complete. Although the challenges to establishing a strong representation of the diversity of the merchant population are considerable, they are not insurmountable if appropriate time and resources are available.

The Jefferson Boulevard photovoice study is designed to be a non-neutral facilitation of individual expression by participants. As a constructivist-based effort in the context of grounded theory, this study began with a leading question, which must be shaped and refined by data that has yet to be collected (Denzen and Lincoln, 2018).

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Just as photovoice is intended to reveal alignments of values and priorities among merchants, it may also reveal contentions and prejudices participants have with fellow merchants. As one participant in the demonstration called out low cost auto insurance agencies and payday loaners as negative to the community, future participants are free to identify other businesses as part of the problem. This scenario may result in some discomfort felt within the dialogic space, but if the perception is honestly presented, it will be a valuable component to encourage positive change that benefits the corridor.

Although some merchants were not comfortable participating, those that agreed to participate were engaged in the process and expressed a strong desire to see the collection of photographs exhibited publicly. Among all five participants was a curiosity to see the photography of other participating merchants. The interest in engagement through photovoice, even in the context of anonymity, will be critical to the study’s potential impact in creating dialogic space between merchants and with other decision-makers.

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APPENDIX A

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APPENDIX B

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