Using Photovoice with Migrant and Non-Migrant Youth to Explore Integration in Local Communities

Photovoice is a participatory action research method that allows participants to express their stories, ideas, and emotions through photographs and discuss them in a group to reflect upon their community. The study aims at investigating the emotional and cognitive representations of the young participants (migrant and non-migrant) on integration in the living context in which they spend most of their time. The participants were 4 psychology students, 2 peer researchers, and 6 migrants. Results show how participants from different backgrounds conceptualize integration according to different themes: 1. A universal language (of music, art, food) to convey integration; 2. Travel as a metaphor for encounter; 3. Solidarity as a universal gesture; 4. Nostalgia as an obstacle to integration; and 5. Loneliness and poverty as factors of non-integration. Implications of the results are discussed.