Visual Studies, 2016
Vol. 31, No. 3, 260–278, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2016.1210992
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? A reflection on the
use of visual and narrative methods in research with migrant
sex workers in South Africa
ELSA OLIVEIRA
Although migration plays a critical role in the economic
landscape of the world, government officials and researchers
do not sufficiently include migration and/or migrants in
research studies and development policies. In South Africa,
many migrants – both internal and cross-border – engage
in informal livelihood strategies, including sex work (see
Richter et al. 2012). Currently, the bulk of research that is
being conducted in South Africa in the areas of migration
and sex work rely heavily on the use of traditional research
approaches and focus mainly on concerns surrounding
issues of public health, with increased attention to HIV (for
example, see SANAC 2013; Scheibe, Drame and Shannon
2012; Scorgie et al. 2011). While this work is invaluable,
there is a need for research that can counter the stigma that
sex workers overwhelmingly face in light of HIV/AIDS.
Participatory visual and narrative research approaches – as
part of mixed method study designs – that examine the
lived experiences of migrant sex workers can provide
important insights that ‘move beyond the polarized and
simplistic arguments that have circulated in South African
about migrant sex workers’ (Nyangairi and Palmary, 2014,
132). This methodological approach makes important and
necessary contributions to national and international
discourses on migration and sex work (see Oliveira and
Vearey 2015). In addition, these methods provide a unique
platform where the normative discourses that portray
migrants as a homogenous vulnerable and apolitical group
of people can be contested (Palmary 2006). In this article, I
present and discuss three participatory visual and narrative
research projects that have been conducted with migrant
men, women and transgender persons who sell sex in two
Provinces of South Africa and examine the suitability of
these approaches.
SETTING THE SCENE
People move for a wide variety of reasons. While some
move as a result of environmental disasters, political
conflict, war or economic collapses, others move for less
desperate reasons such as, for love, out of a desire for
adventure or to follow a career or educational
Elsa Oliveira is a researcher and PhD candidate at the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand located in Johannesburg,
South Africa. She is examining the use of participatory visual and narrative methods to understand the grounded lived experiences of migrant sex workers in
South Africa.
© 2016 International Visual Sociology Association
opportunity. Although many people move and never
return to their birthplace, most migrants remain strongly
connected to people ‘back home’ (see Vearey 2010). A
clear indicator of migrants’ strong links to home is seen in
the amount remittances across the globe (IOM 2015).
According to a report released by the International
Organization for Migration in 2015, there were 232
million international migrants in the world in 2014, and
while the percentage of the world’s population that are
cross-border migrants has remained fairly steady, the
World Bank reports that remittances have significantly
increased during the last 15 years: from 132 billion US
dollars in 2000 to 427 billion US dollars in 2014 (World
Bank Press Release 2016). This increase in remittances
not only plays an integral role in global economic
landscapes, the increase indicates migration as a critical
livelihood strategy for many people and families.
The most recent census conducted in South Africa
shows that the majority of migration in the country is
internal with individuals moving from one province to
another in search of economic prospects. In line with
global trends – and contrary to popular perceptions –
only 3.3% of the South African population is made up of
cross-border migrants (StatsSA 2012). Due to a scarcity
of formal employment options in South Africa, many
migrants – especially those with irregular
documentation – enter informal labour markets and
work as street vendors, domestic workers and as sex
workers, to name a few (see Vearey and Myronuik
2014). Although the informal sector is more accessible to
many migrants, it is typically omitted from research and
overlooked in international and local laws, policy and
programmes (Oliveira and Vearey 2015, 306).
An informal income earning area that some migrants
find more lucrative than other informal options is sex
work. Whilst exact numbers of individuals engaged in
the sex industry in South Africa are lacking, current
research shows that the industry is made up of both
South African nationals and foreign-born migrants
(Richter and Delva 2011). However, while sex work is

considered to be an important informal livelihood
strategy (see UNAIDS 2012), it is currently illegal in
South Africa (SAFLII 2010).
Existing research clearly links the criminalisation of sex
work to increased risks and experiences of stigma,
discrimination and violence (see Gould and Fick 2008).
Religious and moral ideologies, including the global
anti-trafficking campaign, add additional layers of
marginalisation towards those who sell sex. As a result,
many migrants who sell sex struggle to access safe public
health-care services, legal protection and social services
(see Richter et al. 2012; Walker and Oliveira 2015).
Cross-border migrants involved in the sex industry have
been shown to experience additional barriers linked to
their migration status, resulting in increased levels of
structural and direct violence, including fear and
experience of xenophobic aggression (see Richter and
Delva 2011; Oliveira 2016).
Currently, the bulk of information that circulates about
sex work and migration in mainstream media, policy
circles and in research ‘tell stories of sex workers being
abused, exploited, and trafficked. They do it so often that
we have become almost indifferent to it, as it almost
always happens in front of horror’ (Geymont and Macioti
2016, 1). Growing bodies of researchers, including myself,
believe that one way to counter these incomplete
representations of sex work is to support the production
of information and material generated by those who are
experiencing the abuse and exploitation under discussion.
In March 2016, Beyond Trafficking and Slavery – an
editorial partnership between openDemocracy and
researchers from Africa, Asia, America, Australia and
Europe – launched a two-week series entitled, Sex
workers speak: who listens? Targeted primarily at an
academic audience, this series features work by authors
who are and/or were involved in the sex industry, and/or
in sex workers’ organising. Using a participatory
research model, the series not only provides a refreshing
approach to research methods and dissemination on sex
work and migration, the contributions reveal a radical
diversity of knowledge within contemporary sex work
movements (Geymont and Macioti 2016).
Research conducted in South Africa in the areas of
migration and sex work tends to rely heavily on the use
of traditional research approaches, focusing mainly on
concerns surrounding issues of public health, with
increased attention to HIV (see Scheibe, Richter and
Vearey 2016). While this work is invaluable, there is a
need for research that can counter the stigma that sex
workers overwhelmingly face in the light of HIV/AIDS
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 261
(see Parker and Aggleton 2003; Corrêa, Petchesky, and
Parker 2008).
As already highlighted, migrant sex workers in South
Africa – and across the globe – are a highly marginalised
and under-represented group of people who are often
excluded from mainstream public and policy discourses
(Oliveira and Vearey 2015).
To date, much of the information circulating about
migrant sex workers has been produced by individuals
who do not engage with, share or occupy the same
spaces as those that they research and write about
(Oliveira and Vearey 2016). As a result, portrayals of the
complex lives of migrants who sell sex are lacking.
Recognition of this has led some students and
researchers at the African Centre for Migration &
Society (ACMS), including myself, to search for different
ways of conceptualising, undertaking and disseminating
research relating to migration and sex work (for
example, see Oliveira 2016; Schuler 2016).
Recognising the need to involve people and communities
within research processes, and an associated commitment
to developing ways of co-producing and sharing
knowledge through public engagement, has resulted in
the establishment of the MoVE (method:visual:explore)
project at the ACMS, a project that explores ways of doing
research differently (for example, see Oliveira and Vearey
2015; Oliveira, Meyers, and Vearey 2016).
Central to the MoVE project is the recognition that the
inclusion of participatory visual and narrative approaches
(as part of mixed method study designs) not only foster
important insights that ‘move beyond the polarized and
simplistic arguments that have circulated in South Africa
about migrant sex workers’ (Nyangairi and Palmary 2015,
132), the approaches also facilitate unique platforms for
public dissemination and engagement that extend outside
traditional research outlets (see Oliveira, Meyers, and
Vearey 2016). The application of participatory visual and
narrative approaches offer innovative tools for
understanding, which can frame important contexts
specific to migrants who sell sex, offering those engaged in
the process a chance to challenge and contest discourses
that tend to portray them as a homogenous vulnerable and
apolitical group of people.
The aim of this article, therefore, is to present and
discuss three participatory visual and narrative research
projects conducted with migrant men, women and
transgender persons who sell sex in two Provinces of
South Africa. As one of the primary purposes of these
projects was to tackle normative depictions of migrant
sex workers by making ‘visible’ their own visual and
262 E. Oliveira
narrative representations, this article reports findings
that deal with the pedagogical potential and risks of
migrant sex workers when using a range of participatory
approaches whereby they construct and represent – in
their own terms – their lived realities.
PARTICIPATORY VISUAL RESEARCH
Influenced by the work of Paulo Freire, Cornwall and
Jewkes (1995) argue that participatory research is about
‘empowering disenfranched and marginalized groups to
take action to transform their lives’ (1674). According to
them, the decision to apply participatory methods is not
necessarily a result of training in this particular area but
rather stems from ‘a choice, which is both personal and
inherently political’ (1667). Participatory research gains
knowledge using a ‘bottom-up’ approach that focuses on
a process of ‘sequential reflection and action carried out
with and by local people rather than on them’ (Cornwall
and Jewkes 1995, 1667). Maggie O’Neil – a researcher
based in the UK who uses participatory visual methods
in her research with sex workers – argues that innovative
methods with marginalised people can transgress
conventional or traditional ways of interpreting data and
can challenge stereotypes by encouraging reflection by
those participating in the visual experience – researchers,
research participants and audience alike (O’Neill 2002).
Participatory visual approaches encompass a range of
strategies meant to facilitate participant-centred
‘meaning-making’ through collaborative processes as
individual participants and/or as a participatory group
(Blackbeard and Lindegger 2015, 87). A popular
participatory visual method that is used by researchers
across disciplines is ‘photovoice’. Photovoice is a
research strategy that was first advanced by Wang and
Burris (1997) during their research on women’s health
in China. According to them, photovoice addresses
social change through participant photography, critical
reflection and participant-generated ‘photo-texts’
(Evans-Agnew and Rosemberg 2016, 1).
Researchers across disciplines have employed
participatory visual and narrative approaches to examine
a range of issues including homelessness (Bukowski and
Buetow 2011), the role of caregivers (Mitchell 2011), the
lives of migrant and asylum-seeking women (Haaken and
O’Neill 2014), disease surveillance and public health in
war-affected camps (Wickramage and Nellapalli 2008);
cultural memory (Harper 2001), informal settlements and
HIV (Vearey 2011), collective memory and national
identity (Leavy 2008) and childhood and belonging
(Wilson and Milne 2015). Researchers who employ these
methods often do so because they are interested in direct
participant engagement that facilitates the possibility for a
transformative intervention (Mitchell 2011). The option
to share the ‘artefacts’ that are made during these projects
adds an additional appeal for some researchers (Oliveira
and Vearey 2015).
While the application of these methods can serve as an
effective pedagogical tool for enabling groups of people
who are marginalised and/or under-represented to reflect
upon issues of social justice that have a direct impact on
their lives, there are important limitations to consider.
Since one of the tenants of participatory research is to
address issues of power by involving direct participation,
usually with members of poor communities, researchers
must be aware of sliding into western cultural
imperialistic ideals (Cornwall and Jewkes 1995).
Assumptions made by researchers that participants will
accept, believe and/or feel comfortable with the ideals of
democracy presented by researchers and/or notions that
participants will have the time, willingness and desire to
participate can reinforce the very power structures that
the process aims to address (Fink 2012).
In addition to these concerns, some researchers have
highlighted the risks associated when seeking to ‘make
visible’ the lives of marginalised people (see Vearey
2010). Caroline Kihato, a researcher in South Africa who
included a photovoice approach during her research
with migrant women in Johannesburg, argues that
researchers must consider the camera as a
‘disempowering tool’ given the possible dangers of
making migrant lives visible (Kihato 2010, 14).
Claims that these methods are empowering for
individuals in marginalised communities have also been
refuted. Barrett (2004) discloses challenges that surfaced
during a photo-documentation project on needle
exchange. During this project, tensions between what
she wanted to capture – people exchanging needles –
with the participants’ wishes and needs for privacy
protection and anonymity surfaced strongly. Similar to
Barrett’s research, when Packard (2008) gave disposable
cameras to homeless people and asked them to take
pictures of their lived experiences as a way to reduce the
power imbalance between the researcher and subjects,
the study revealed that participants ‘appeared uneasy
about having to talk about and explain their images, or
even listen to or take compliments about them’ (73).
PRESENTING THE PROJECTS: A DISCUSSION
The projects in this article were conducted with adult
migrants who sell sex in two South African Provinces:
Gauteng and Limpopo. During the projects, participants
used a range of visual and narrative tools to express their
 Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 263

thoughts, ideas and feelings, and to generate their
selected outputs. Contesting the normative and
problematic depictions often associated with being a
migrant who sells sex, visual and narrative methods were
employed with the aim of exploring migrant sex
workers’ subjective experiences.
The participant-centred approach facilitated a process
whereby researchers and participants worked together in
knowledge and meaning-making. By using a series of
participatory approaches, the researchers shifted the
focus to the ‘experts of their own lives’ (Thompson 2008,
26) in order to enable migrant sex workers to ‘speak for
themselves’ (Burke 2008, 30). In addition to generating
research data, the projects also supported the production
of participant-generated and participant-selected
material to be exhibited, distributed and shared with
public audiences.
Each of the projects that inform this article included a
set of collaborating partner organisations. The 2010 and
2013 projects involved collaboration with ACMS, a
researcher centre at Wits University in Johannesburg;
the Sisonke Sex Worker Movement, a national sex
worker run movement in South Africa; and the Market
Photo Workshop (MPW), a local photography school in
inner city Johannesburg that was founded in 1989
(during Apartheid) by world-renowned photographer
and anti-Apartheid activist David Goldblatt (MPW
2016). The 2015 project involved collaboration with the
ACMS and Sisonke.
Prior to beginning each project, prospective participants
were identified by Sisonke and were invited to attend an
information session. During the information session,
participants were informed of the parameters of the
research as well as the risks (and benefits) of their
participation. Prospective participants were told that
they could drop out of the project at any time and those
who wished to participate gave verbal consent.
some migrants face when crossing borders, explained
why she changed her name,
Many people in the community know me by
that other name. Clients, other sex workers and
even the police. Even the community. I wanted
to tell that story because I think that it’s
important for people to know what migrants
risk when they leave their countries but it
doesn’t mean that I want everyone to know my
pain. It is one thing to write about it and release
it and share it and it is another thing for people
to look at you and know what happened. Even
though many people know this story about me
because I talk about it sometimes I didn’t want
everyone to be able to know that it is me who
wrote that so easily. (August 2013)
In Sitembile’s photo-text story, she describes an
experience of being raped by men proposing to help her
during her journey from Zimbabwe to South Africa. She
explains this event as the reason why she is now HIV-
positive. The mainstream depictions frequently
associated with being a cross-border black migrant
woman, who is HIV-positive, and who sells sex in South
Africa are not only grim they are shrouded in
stereotypes and stigma that are often used – in a range
of ways – to justify discriminatory treatment and
violence towards migrants, sex workers and migrant sex
workers. Sitembile’s decision to change her name and
her reasons for doing so offer an important introduction
into the tactics and strategies that the participants
employ(ed) as they negotiate, manage, resist, subvert
and survive their lives.
Each project that is presented in this article received
ethics approval from the University of the
Witwatersrand Ethics (non-medical) Committee.

Since each of the projects involved group work, we could

not ensure anonymity; however, participants were
offered the opportunity to select a pseudonym. Since the
adoption of pseudonyms is a common practice for
people engaged in the sex industry, many selected the
same name for the project as the ones they used for
work. While some participants kept the original
pseudonym from inception to completion, many
changed their pseudonyms during the final editing
stages of the project.

FIGURE 1. The month-long exhibition launch of Working the City:

Sitembile, a Volume 44 participant who shared a Experiences of Migrant Women in Inner City Johannesburg; Market photo
personal experience as a way to highlight the risks that gallery, October 2010.
264 E. Oliveira

2010 Working the City: Experiences of Migrant

Women in Inner-City Johannesburg1

Inspired by previous participatory photo projects that

had been conducted at the ACMS in partnership with
the MPW (Vearey 2010), the Working the City project
involved an 11-day participatory photo workshop with
11 cross-border and internal adult migrant women who
lived and sold sex in Hillbrow – Johannesburg’s most
densely populated inner-city areas.

Participants in this project attended all day workshops

where they received training in basic photography and
editing from a photographer-facilitator who had
previous experience conducting photovoice workshops FIGURE 3. ©Mimi. An old lady selling her wares along Banket St. in
in South Africa. Using an adapted photovoice approach, Hillbrow. The stickers on the wall are of people searching for
accommodation. There is an accommodation shortage in the area. (Image
the participants were lent digital cameras and were given included in her final public photo-story).
journals, and were asked to document the lived
experiences that they wanted to explore through
photographs and narrative writing (Oliveira and Vearey
2015). On the last three days of the workshop,
participants met at the MPW where they reviewed the
photographs that they had taken during their time in the
project. With support from the project team, each
participant selected 10 images that they captured,
including a self-portrait, along with accompanying
captions that they wrote, and a narrative story that they
produced, for public consumption (figures 2, 3, and 4).

Because photographs can have variety of interpretations,

with regard to setting, subject and purpose, the narrative
story and captions that were created by the participants
anchored their commentary and desired public message
FIGURE 4. ©Confidence. I photographed this as I feel that most sex
(s). The participant-selected material was then curated
workers are being discriminated against and that some people feel
by the MPW into 12 posters: one for each participant ashamed about sex work as if it is out of this world. (Image included in her
composed of eight selected images and captions along final public photo-story).

with a short narrative, and a poster that introduced the

project and partnership (Oliveira and Vearey 2015).

The project culminated in a one-month public exhibition

at the MPW Gallery in October 2010 with all of the
participants in attendance on the opening night (figure 1).
Testimonies of satisfaction and feelings of pride when they
saw their final products displayed were unanimously
shared by all of the participants. Although they were
informed that the event would include researchers, policy-
makers, civil society, the media and the public at large,
none had previously attended an exhibition.

Thembile, a migrant sex worker from a rural area outside

of Johannesburg who received a scholarship from the
FIGURE 2. ©Shorty. An open electricity box on Twist St. in Hillbrow. The
box has been open for some time posing a danger to residents. (Image MPW after her participation in the project, described the
included in her final public photo-story). importance of witnessing public engagement by saying,

I had no idea what I was going to see. You all kept
telling us that people were going to see what we
had created but there was no way that I could
imagine it. I never been to something like that and
to see people reading our words was too powerful.
You see we never get to tell our stories and this
was too important for me. For us. Because of this
project people know that we are more than just
prostitutes. We are people who are in this work
because we need to make money. We love our
families. Too many times people think that we are
nothing more than prostitutes and now they
know. That is too important. (January 2012)
Although the ACMS had engaged in previous participatory
projects, none had gained the level of publicity and
attention as Working the City. The project took place
merely a month after the 2010 World Cup event that was
hosted in South Africa had ended. As preparations were
being made for this mega sporting event, unfound claims
that 40 000 women were going to be trafficked into South
Africa in order to meet the sexual demands of international
tourists sparked local and international media attention.
Curated and staged messages, funded primarily by
neoliberal abolitionist agendas, were displayed across
billboards and inserted into television and radio
programmes. The anti-trafficking awareness campaigns
not sought to solicit public support for ‘the cause’ the
messages also aimed to promote the notion that all who
engaged in the selling of sex were victims of trafficking.
Given this very specific context and the timely nature of
the Working the City project, it is no wonder that the
project gained significant popularity. The participant
generated photo-stories in the Working the City
exhibition offered media personnel, researchers, activists
and the public at large with set of representations that
challenged, contested and subverted popular notions
that people who sell sex are all victims.
Since the official exhibition, this body of work has travelled
extensively to local, national and international forums
(Oliveira and Vearey 2015). Almost six years later, there are
still requests coming in for the use of images by researchers
and the media. These requests are seen as a positive
indication of the need for more diverse representations of
migrant women and migrants who sell sex.
The participant selections revealed a diversity of themes and
issues, including but not limited to gender, livelihood
strategies, migration and/or sex work. Some of the women
explained their migration journeys from Zimbabwe to
South Africa, reflecting on family left behind while sharing
experiences of life in a new country. The opportunity to
build solidarity and develop stories for other sex workers
inspired some participants to share personal accounts of
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 265
their sex work experiences. One participant shared her
personal health strategies in the wake of learning that she
was HIV-positive, offering encouragement to other sex
workers to get tested and seek treatment. Alongside personal
testimonies of hardship as a result of abusive partners,
clients and/or police were depictions of resistance and
accounts of dreams and aspirations for the future (Oliveira
2016).
The unanticipated success and visibility of Working the
City prompted the research team to critically reflect on a
range of issues regarding the suitability of visual approaches
with this marginalised group of people. The posters that
made up the exhibition were clearly branded as a
participatory photo project with migrant sex workers living
in Johannesburg. While all of the participants expressed
satisfaction when first seeing their individual posters, many
folded and/or completely tore off the section of the poster
that explained the project after being given a personal copy.
When I asked Ana, a South African migrant from the
KwaZulu Natal Province who explained her entry into
sex work after fleeing her abusive husband, why she tore
off that section of her poster, she said,
I am so proud of my work and I want more of this
kind of projects because most peoples don’t
understand us but for me it is too much a risk to
have things about sex work in my house because
my family don’t know what I do so I am scared
for them to find it. I make the story for those
people that doesn’t know about my life situation
and it’s a good thing. I don’t know. I just feel like
taking that stuff out of my poster. (February 2011)
Because the Working the City exhibition featured
participant-generated photo-texts that were created by a
group of people who employ invisibility tactics in order to
avoid additional harassment and violence, the images that
clearly identified workplaces, participants and sex work
colleagues presented a limitation of this project. In an
environment where sex work is illegal and violence
towards sex workers is real, these images pose a possible
risk to those involved as well as to the wider community of
sex workers. These concerns made the project vulnerable
to criticisms of photography as a tool of voyeurism,
surveillance and exploitation (Lomax 2012). Additional
steps to reduce these risks were implemented in the second
iteration of this project that took place in 2013.
After the photography phase of the project ended, I
randomly selected five participants and invited them to
take part in narrative interviews where I used the images
produced by them as prompts for further narrative
inquiry – a technique often referred to as ‘photo-
elicitation’ (Harper 2012). Douglas Harper, one of the
266 E. Oliveira

most experienced practitioners of this method, states complicated spaces for us and many people don’t
that the photo-elicitation process involves ‘collaboration: like sex work so maybe they say something bad
people using images in one of several ways to learn about it when one of us is there and it doesn’t
something together’ (2012, 155). make us feel good. (February 2012)

The injection of this method into the study revealed This was the first participatory visual research study that I
additional insights into the lives of migrant women who coordinated and the insights that I gained into these
sold sex and exposed invaluable understandings into the approaches substantially influenced the conceptualisation,
use of participatory visual and narrative approaches with design and implementation of subsequent projects.
marginalised groups. During the photo elicitation
interviews, participants shed light on additional aspects 2013–2014 Volume 44: A Participatory
of their lives; they explained the reasons behind their Photography Project with Migrant Sex Workers2
selected photo-texts, why it was important (or not) to
The strengths and lessons learned from the 2010 project,
tell that particular story and what they gained (or not)
as well as specific partner interests, drove the
from their participation in the project. The interviews
development of Volume 44. This project took place in
also highlighted the limitations of language regarding
two Provinces (Gauteng and Limpopo) and included a
participants’ understandings of public and private.
larger number and diversity of participants: 19 men,
Mimi, a migrant woman from Zimbabwe who explained women and transgender persons engaged in the sex
her entry into sex work as a result of losing her industry. Although photography remained the principal
identification documents after arriving to Johannesburg, visual tool of the project, this iteration incorporated a
explained during an interview with me, that her family much broader range of visual and narrative approaches,
and friends did not know of her involvement in sex including mapping, daily writing exercises, storyboards
work. Given this, I was surprised to see that Mimi had and group image editing (figures 5–9).
selected a self-portrait for public dissemination that
The project sites for Volume 44 were (1) inner city
clearly identified her. After explaining that her selections
Johannesburg – Gauteng’s most populated city and (2)
were going into public spheres, including the Internet,
Musina – a rural town located in the northern Limpopo
she demanded that her self-portrait be removed by
saying, ‘I didn’t understand this very well. I know that
other people were going to see it but now after you
explain this to me again I understand that I am in
danger. If people find out I made this story they will
know that I am selling sex’ (February 2011). Luckily, the
interview was taking place just as the final exhibition
posters were heading out, so we were able to replace her
self-portrait with one that protected her anonymity.

Many months after the launch of Working the City, a local

Hillbrow public health clinic expressed interest in
exhibiting the work. Since the clinic was a space that many
of the participants visited regularly, I asked a few
participants what they thought about their work on display
at the clinic. All shared reservations, explaining concern
and disinterest in seeing the exhibition displayed in their
lived communities. Iketlang, a migrant woman from a
rural area outside of South Africa’s capital city, stated,

You can show the work in spaces outside of

Hillbrow. Here too many people know us. We
are at risk. But, you can show it over there
because these people will never go there so it’s
fine. But here in Hillbrow, no – eish, it could be a
problem. Maybe they won’t know who the
person is that made the work and stories but if
someone that was in the project walks in and sees FIGURE 5. A participant working on a mapping exercise that highlights the
their work they might not like it. The clinics are places and spaces most relevant in her life.

FIGURE 6. In an effort to acquaint participants with the process of
producing photo-stories, each week participants selected images that they
had taken, for printing. Taken during the second phase of the project, this
image shows Sandira, a Musina participant, creating her photo-story.
FIGURE 7. A ‘wall of words’ was created during the workshops where the
research team, including participants, captured prevailing themes that
surfaced throughout the workshop; including during image critique
sessions, during photo-story discussions and during mapping exercise
presentations. Participants were also encouraged to write their individual
reflections, issues and concerns onto the wall of words.
province that shares a border with Zimbabwe. Due to the
lack of research conducted with migrant sex workers in
Limpopo, the Musina site included participants from
surrounding towns. A total of 10 participants, four women
and one gay man who lived and worked in Musina, two
women from Thouyandou, and two women from
Makhado, collectively made up the Limpopo project.
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 267
FIGURE 8. Timzela, a Musina participant, uses her printed images to write
captions in her journal.
FIGURE 9. Receiving support from Thandile Zwelibanzi (professional
photographer and project assistant facilitator), Sandira examines her
images, deciding which she wants to include for her public and private
exhibitions.
MPW believed that increased visual literacy training and
more time for participants to experiment with image
capturing was important therefore, unlike the previous
2010 project that took place over the course of 11 days,
this one ran for 16 days. The workshops were spread out
over the course of six weeks; each workshop was divided
into three separate phases with each lasting an average of
five days. During the ‘break sessions’ between phases,
participants were encouraged to work on their
individual visual and narrative stories (figure 10).
Unlike the 2010 project, where the writing component
consisted solely of photo-texts and a short narrative, this
project offered participants the option to engage in daily
writing exercises. At the end of each workshop day, a
writing prompt, usually consisting of a single word and/
or theme, was given to participants. Completing the
writing exercise was not compulsory to their
268 E. Oliveira
FIGURE 10. During a photo excursion, Madoda Makhobeni (professional
photographer and MPW graduate) provides mentorship to Tafadzwa, a
Musina participant whose photo-story links his desire to support his family
with his late fathers migration to South Africa. In this narrative, he writes, ‘he
worked for several years striving to send us to school and feed us until the
mine shut down. Without any tertiary qualifications or other skills I decided
to come to South Africa as well to look for a job so that I could look after
my siblings’ (Tafadwa 2015, 104).
participation in the project. They were encouraged to
reflect on the writing prompt and write about whatever
came to mind, whatever the word brought up. I
explained that they could write about factual events or
not; it entirely was up to them.
Since workshops were primarily reserved for photo
training, participants wanting to engage with the writing
prompt did so outside of the workshop space. Because
most of the participants worked at night and/or had
family responsibilities that took up evening hours, their
time for writing was limited. Surprisingly, not only did
most find the time to complete this optional task, many
requested additional writing prompts during the
weekends. When the projects ended, participants’
requests continued, and for over a year, weekly writing
prompts were sent, resulting in hundreds of pages filled
with written reflections, drawings and collage.
Writing was perceived by participants as offering important
skill development opportunities that could benefit their lives
in tangible ways, whereas, photography while an enjoyable
aspect of the project, was seen as a more frivolous activity.
During an informal interview with Sandira – a participant
from Musina – she said,
[. . .] now I know how to take pictures and
when I see pictures I think about why people
took the picture and what they were trying to
say but the writing was a better thing to learn. I
can practice English and if I keep writing then I
can maybe get better at it and one day work as
a peer educator. (February 2014)
Skara, a Johannesburg participant from Zimbabwe,
during a photo-elicitation interview, said,
For me writing is important because I need it if I
want to do something else besides sex working.
Now I know that I can take pictures and I know
how to use them to tell a better message but I’m
not going to get a job as a photographer. If I
write better and my English improves maybe I
can get a job in an office. (January 2014)
During a recent visit to Limpopo, Sitembile said,
I want to write more. Can you please send us
writing prompts? The other day I was in a
tunnel and I was thinking about the tunnel and
how it can represent a story about my life and I
want to take a picture and write about it. Since
these workshops, I think about stories all of the
time. (November 2015)
Similar to Working the City, this project also included a
public exhibition of posters with participant selected images,
captions and narratives. A difference in this project,
however, was that participants were also offered an
opportunity to create a ‘private story’ if they wished. During
the 2010 project, many of the visual and narrative stories
that were selected for the public exhibition differed, in
varying degrees, from the stories that were highlighted
during the workshops. Although this is an important aspect
of participatory processes, the research team felt that it was
important to offer the participants an option to develop a
photo-text story that was less curated and restrictive. The
‘private stories’ were displayed in the workshop space on the
last day of the workshop. Although the narratives in these
stories were mostly the same as those they had created for
the public, participants took the opportunity to display
images of themselves, their families and their communities
alongside their selected public images.
The last three days of this workshop also consisted of
participants making their final photo-text selections for
the public exhibition. In addition to these selections,
participants also identified images that could be used by
researchers and the media. In this project, each
participant identified one to two images from their final
selections for a ‘media pack’ and a ‘partner pack’.
Participants were allowed to select the same images for
both packs if they preferred (figures 11–14).
This additional step meant that the only images that
could be used outside of the exhibition with authorisation
were those selected by the participants themselves. Issues
of copyright and ownership were better addressed in this
project iteration than in Working the City.
The Volume 44 projects culminated in a public exhibition
held at the Market Photo Workshop Gallery in May 2014.
In addition to 36 posters, two posters for each of the 19
participants, the exhibition also highlighted the multiple

FIGURE 11. ©Kefiloe. They moved from different places. She went looking
for a flat at Rosebell. They stayed there for something like five years. Then
the place was renovated and they moved them to Chelsea Court. Chelsea is
a nice building and it is cheap. Chelsea was a hotel where workers worked
and it was renovated too. (Image included in her final public photo-story.)
FIGURE 12. ©Modise. Looking forward to the light, living in the dark side,
telling himself that he is going to make it. (Image included in his final
public photo-story.)
FIGURE 13. ©Primose. A migrant selling charcoal. (Image included in her
final public photo-story.)
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 269
FIGURE 14. ©Timzela. Trucks near the Musina mall; the drivers have been
loyal customers for years. (Image included in her final public photo-story).
layers of the project, featuring aspects of the multimodal
visual and narrative approaches, such as mapping and
narrative writing (figures 15, 16 and 17).
The project covered the long distance transportation
costs and accommodation expenses for the 10
participants from Limpopo to attend the exhibition. All
19 participants attended the opening night of the
exhibition. Public attendees that I spoke with described
the event as eye opening, powerful and engaging. And,
the participants described their experience as
empowering, validating and inspiring:
I got my hair done and I was looking so smart.
For me, this was something that I can never
imagine. The posters and the drawings were so
nice. And the book about our project was so
special. I never know that what we did would
create what I saw. And, so many people were
there reading our stories. (Nina, May 2014)
I am very proud of my work. I want to keep
telling my story and to keep taking pictures. If I
FIGURE 15. The month-long exhibition launch of Volume 44; Market Photo
Workshop Gallery, May 2015.
270 E. Oliveira

FIGURE 16. The month long Volume 44 exhibition included archival copies
of participant journals on a range of issues, including letters to government
officials, family and ‘young sex workers’. (Permission from the participants
was received by the research team to use the journal entries in the
exhibition.)

FIGURE 18. Izwi Lethu reporters editing one another’s work.

FIGURE 17. Using material from the project, the MPW created postcards
and provided postage stamps for exhibition attendees wishing to share
their opinions, reflections and demands to key stakeholders. The
exhibition included the names and addresses of persons working at the
Department of Health and Department of Justice, for example, and the
completed postcards were deposited in a sealed box made available at
the exhibition.

knew what I know now, my story would be

even more powerful. Eish! It was so good to be
at the exhibition. I never think that something
like that for me. That I would make something
that people want to read and maybe even buy a
book with my story. (Chantal, May 2014)
This photography thing was too hard for me to
imagine. You keep telling us that it is going to
be an exhibition and that people are going to
read what we have to say but to be honest, I
didn’t believe you so much. I did but my mind
could not explain what I saw. Eish- it was
special. (Primrose, May 2014)
Clearly, Working the City and Volume 44 were fruitful
projects. The inclusion of participatory visual methods
supported the production of data that highlights a range of
FIGURE 19. The ACMS and Vrije University were awarded a WOTRO
grant to explore the lived experiences of migrant sex workers in
Johannesburg and Amsterdam (Walker and Oliveira 2015). In this image,
Clara – a previous Volume 44 participant and current reporter for Izwi
Lethu – takes notes during a tour of Constitutional Hill that was held
during an international WOTRO meeting, hosted by the ACMS in
October 2015.
WOTRO Science for Global Development programmes, funds and
monitors innovative research on global issues, with a focus on
sustainable development and poverty reduction. NWO-WOTRO’s
research projects are realised by interdisciplinary teams of researchers
from the North and South and in close collaboration with non-
academic stakeholders. These partnerships yield solutions for
development challenges and strengthen the bridge between
research, policy and practice (lifted from the website http://www.nwo.
nl/en/about-nwo/organisation/nwo-divisions/wotro).

FIGURE 20. The Izwi Lethu editorial team collects questions for the advice
column during monthly Sisonke meetings and weekly outreach campaigns.
important insights into issues of migration, gender, health
and sex work in South Africa (Oliveira 2016). Increased
understandings into the different spatial lived realities –
rural and urban – revealed new and important aspects that
shape sex workers lives in South Africa. As with Working
the City, the photo-text stories in the Volume 44 exhibition
include a range of diverse content. This project included a
greater number of stories calling for the decriminalisation
of sex work than in Working the City.
In addition to generating research that facilitates public
engagement efforts, funding for these projects also
aimed to support the production of sex worker–
generated material that could be used by sex work
movement for advocacy purposes. Although the
Working the City and Volume 44 exhibitions continue to
be displayed in local and international spaces, the costs
incurred to print the posters coupled with the need for
adequate space to exhibit the large bodies of work make
regular use of the exhibitions prohibitive for Sisonke.
This was a clear limitation of both projects.
Recognising the need for more affordable outputs and
increased public engagement opportunities drove the
third iteration of participatory visual work with migrant
sex workers. The final project that I am going to present
in this article is the Izwi Lethu: Our Voices newsletter
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 271
project, an ongoing project that aims to address the
strengths and shortcomings of the previous two projects.
2015 to Current Izwi Lethu: Our Voices
Newsletter Project3
Launched in March 2015, this newsletter project
involves collaboration with the ACMS and Sisonke. Izwi
Lethu is Zulu for Our Voice, a name selected by sex
workers during a Sisonke meeting.
Central to the design and conceptualisation of this
project is the hope that through the support of the
ACMS, Izwi Lethu will eventually become a Sisonke-led
initiative. The ACMS has implemented a range of
strategies to support capacity building, including
developing computer skills, providing social media
training and mentoring the editorial team in the various
aspects of producing a newsletter. ACMS’s commitment
to support and develop capacity that can lead to a
successful transition means that slight adaptations to the
project design are ongoing.
Since the initial newsletter launch, over 35 Sisonke
contributors have participated in the project. At the time
of writing, a total of 11 issues of Izwi Lethu have been
produced. Each newsletter includes at least three feature
stories, an Editor’s note, an advice column (figure 20)
and a guest column – the only piece not written by a sex
worker.
While the ACMS is responsible for the newsletter design
and layout, the editorial team is entirely made up of
Sisonke staff and members. Greta Schuler, an ACMS
researcher and PhD candidate who has designed and
facilitated creative writing workshops since 2012, leads
the workshop facilitation with the support of Munya
Masunga, the Gauteng Sisonke Provincial Coordinator.
Although the workshops typically begin with a guided
discussion of the newsletter, including sample stories as a
way to present different writing techniques and styles, the
emphasis is to learn through the process of writing and
revising (Schuler and Oliveira 2016). Through the
facilitators’ mentorship and guidance, participants
collectively share, discuss, critique, revise and edit one
another’s stories from conception to completion
(figure 18). While many complete their stories during the
workshop, some use the free days to conduct interviews
and/or borrow a camera to take images to complement
their stories (figures 19 and 21). On the last day of the
workshop, participants type their stories on laptops.
To date, nearly all the participants in the newsletter
project have been internal or cross-border migrants.
Alongside personal accounts of triumph in being able to
272 E. Oliveira
FIGURE 21. Izwi Lethu reporters often borrow cameras to take images to
augment their stories.
build homes and send their children to private schools as a
result of sex work earnings, the newsletters also include
heart-wrenching testimonies of hardship and survival.
Clara, an Izwi Lethu reporter, who was also a Volume 44
participant from Johannesburg, shares her views on the
FIGURE 22. Front page of an Izwi Lethu newsletter.
impact that stories written by sex workers can lead to
policy changes:
Izwi Lethu is informative and an education tool
for us se workers and other key players in the
industry such as clients, pimps, brothel owners,
and some of my colleagues, I mean sex workers
who do not understand what the
decriminalization of sex work means. [. . .] Izwi
Lethu serves as a sensitization tool for those
who oppose or do not understand sex work,
including some policy makers, police officers,
or members of the community. The power of
the story told by a sex worker can influence
change and bring the decriminalization of sex
work. (2016, 51)
In August 2015, all but one of the 10 participants from the
2013 Volume 44 project in Musina, Limpopo, came
together to create an Izwi Lethu newsletter for the Limpopo
Province. Most participants travelled more than two hours
in order to attend the week-long workshop, one participant

FIGURE 23. Distribution of Izwi Lethu was included in an activist campaign
on Cape Town’s Sea Point promenade entitled, Sex at the #spexxx
(McDougall 2015).
even travelled nine hours. When I asked why they were
willing to travel such long distances Poppy said,
People come back to these workshops because
we are like a family now. Most people don’t
know our lives like we all do. We have been
together for so long and most of us know more
about one another than our families know.
People support one another and it makes for a
stronger movement. (August 2015)
Through the process of writing and revising stories,
participants learn skills that they can use in other aspects of
their lives. Tendai, who is now working as a project
coordinator with sex work peer educators in Makhado, said,
I have to write reports every month and
through the narrative writing work I have
learned skills that are important in my job.
When you know how to write a letter you can
document human rights abuses and violations
better. I now know that I have to ask for details
of things. Like, what were they wearing, what
time of day was it, what did they say to you. I
know how to use quotation marks and how
these help when trying to explain something
that happened. Before the workshops I just
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 273
wrote but now I understand more about what it
means to document something. (August 2015)
The ability to easily print the newsletter and take copies
to meetings with stakeholders is also an important
outcome of this project (figure 22). Tanaka, the editor in
chief of Izwi Lethu, describes being ‘pleasantly surprised’
by the interest that government officials expressed
during a meeting saying,
I can’t forget one of the Gauteng Department of
Health meetings I attended around May 2015.
My colleagues and I had taken a few copies of
Izwi Lethu with us just to see what the reaction
of government officials and other members of
the civil society would be like. I was pleasantly
surprised to see us run out of copies and
officials still requested more. (2016, 43)
Unlike the previous two projects, where sex work
participants’ developed stories for the general publics (often
targeting persons not engaged in the sex industry)
participants in this project generate stories they feel are most
pertinent to their lives and to their sex work communities.
With a subtitle, “a newsletter by sex workers for sex
workers” the Izwi Lethu newsletter offers those involved
with an opportunity to document and build solidarity with
one another and share information specific to sex workers’
needs and interests, including the sex work helpline number
and information on what to do when arrested.
The shift in target audience also provides those not
engaged in sex work with an opportunity to reflect and
learn about what sex workers might feel as most pertinent
to their lives. According to Katlego Rasebitse, Sisonke
Advocacy and Media Liasion for the Gauteng Province,
Izwi Lethu is an advocacy tool that we take with
us everywhere. It is important that our voices are
shared that there is a space where if people want
to learn more about our lives and the ways that
we feel about certain topics that they can read our
newletter: something that is written by sex
workers not people who are not sex workers.
Nothing about us without us! (Rasebitse 2016, 61)
In addition to sex work–generated stories, the guest
columns can also be used during sensitisation trainings with
stakeholders reticent to pro-sex work developments. In the
first issue of Izwi Lethu, the guest editor was a pastor who
wrote on his views of religion and the reasons why he
supported sex workers. Sex work activists have used this
article as an entry point into discussions and conversations
with other religious and traditional leaders (Massawe 2016).
Dianne Massawe, the research and knowledge management
officer for the Sex Work Education and Advocacy
Taskforce, argues that ‘stories written by sex workers can
274 E. Oliveira
challenge and debunk the single narratives that are often
associated with uninformed stakeholders’ (52).
Izwi Lethu is not only a more cost-effective project that
supports the growing body of work that is being
generated through participatory visual and narrative
research on migrant sex workers in South Africa, the
project reach extends far beyond the previous two
participatory photography projects (figure 23).
EMPOWERING, INVASIVE OR A LITTLE BIT OF
BOTH?
Migrant sex workers across the globe are often
represented by researchers who do not engage, share or
occupy the same lived spaces and experiences as those
they are representing. As a result, depictions are either
focused on presenting the ‘liberated sex worker’ and/or
‘the victim who is forced to sell sex’. These
representations are not only incomplete – they present
superficial portrayals – of the complex lives of migrants
who sell sex. The projects in this article clearly indicate
that there is a need to highlight the multiple realities for
people who sell sex: ‘realities which seep far beyond the
popular discourses which label them as victims and
which demonstrate that experiences of sex work can
embody risk, hope, fear, enjoyment, violence, and
fulfillment’ (Walker and Oliveira 2015, 129).
The decision to apply a participatory visual and narrative
approach, I argue, has not only offered participants an
opportunity to represent themselves in ways that other
traditional methods alone do not offer these methods
provide researchers, participants and the public alike a
unique, and rare opportunity, to reflect and consider the
reasons, messages and depictions being made by a group
of people who are rarely afforded a public platform.
Despite debates about representation and privacy, a
growing body of interdisciplinary scholars are increasingly
turning to participatory visual method approaches as a way
to enhance understandings of the human condition
(Oliveira and Vearey 2015). While these approaches can
facilitate the ‘feel’ of lived realities, researchers must remain
cognizant of the risks involved when including a public
engagement component in projects with marginalised
groups. Strategies to reduce the risk for participants and
their communities are required. Special attention to the
images and information that is included in participant-
selected material is an especially important role for
researchers who seek to make lives ‘visible’.
Issues of power evident in research development are also
important aspects for researchers to be mindful of when
undertaking participatory research. More often than not,
research agendas are typically identified by funders,
community-based organisations and/or the research
team as necessary ‘problem areas’ to explore rather than
by the research participants themselves. The identified
‘problem areas’ may not always be synonymous with
what participants feel are most pressing in relation to
their immediate needs. An example of this can be seen
in the projects that are presented in this article, where
both our civil society and funding partner identified the
decriminalisation of sex work as the paramount issue
that needs tackling in order to improve the lives of sex
workers in South Africa. Almost all of the individuals
who participated in the three projects presented in this
article are members of the Sisonke Sex Worker
Movement. As part of their membership to Sisonke, they
are expected to align with the call for decriminalisation.
However, when asked which issues are most pressing
almost all prioritise affordable housing, educational
training and access to formal work opportunities above
the need for decriminalisation. Therefore, when
designing participatory visual research studies, it is
important that the research design includes openness
whereby participant–researcher investigations can
include additional areas of relevance and pertinence.
Funding limitations and project sustainability are an
additional factor to consider when employing
participatory visual approaches that aim – through the
use of participant-generated material – at supporting
social justice movements. In this article, I presented
three iterations of work, each involving a public
engagement component. While all included participant-
generated material for public consumption, the final
artefacts influenced the ways in which the sex worker
communities used them.
While participatory visual and narrative methods can be
used as stand-alone research tools, I argue, that the
inclusion of more traditional qualitative methods, such
as photo-elicitation, are necessary in order for
researchers to avoid overly simplistic conceptualisations
and misrepresentations. The photo-elicitation interviews
with participants, partners and key stakeholders have
provided me with more critical lenses with which to
explore the efficacy of such approaches and their
resulting outputs.
The inclusion of photo-elicitation facilitated a more
nuanced understanding regarding the ways in which
participants understood, negotiated and engaged their
participation. Important aspects of representation surfaced
strongly during the one-on-one interview sessions.
During a photo-elicitation interview with Sbu, a
Working the City participant, I asked her to title each of

the images that she had selected for public consumption
– a strategy that I used as a way to incite and facilitate
further narrative inquiry. While Sbu comfortably titled
most her images, she hesitated to title her self-portrait –
an image of her silhouette standing above still water.
Holding the image in her hand for some time before she
eventually titled it, ‘hypocrite’ (November 2011). When I
asked her to explain the title, she said,
When you first look at this image the water looks
clean but when you look more you see that it is
dirty. I feel the same way about me. When
people look at me they think that I am clean. I
present myself as a clean person but I don’t feel
like I am. I do this sex working to feed my kids
and even though I am proud of being able to feed
them peoples think that I am dirty and now I
even start to believe it. (November 2011)
During the interview, Sbu shared her fear of church
members finding out that she sold sex. The cognitive
dissonance between being proud to be able to support
her children with the shame that she felt appeared to
cause her great inner turmoil. In her own words,
If the people at church knew what I did I think that
they would tell me that I could not come back to
church. I feel like I am always living a double life.
My family doesn’t know what I do, and my church
friends don’t either. Who am I? I try my best, but
God will punish me someday. I can’t hide from
him. Sometimes I feel that I am not worthy to be at
church because I am a hypocrite. I go to church
and hear the preacher and sometimes he says
things about the work that I do and I think that he
is talking to me and I feel so ashamed. I don’t
know what to do but I can’t do anything else. I
want to work as a counselor or a social worker but
I don’t have the opportunities now. And, I must
feed my family. I support so many people, but it’s
hard to feel this way. (November 2011)
Sbu was not a vocal participant during the project. She
often worked alone and did not join the group in the
spontaneous ‘proud to be a sex worker’ celebrations that
sometimes erupt during workshops. Had I not conducted
photo-elicitation interviews, insights such as those that
Sbu provided would not have been revealed. The
triangulation of methods therefore is seen to be a pivotal
aspect of research processes that inform this article.
So, are these methods empowering, invasive or a little bit
of both? The projects that have been presented in this
article clearly indicate that the projects can be both
invasive and empowering.
Empowering, invasive or a little bit of both? 275
According to Pamela Chakuvinga, assistant director of
the national Sisonke National Movement and key
research-partner in the three projects,
These projects give our members an opportunity
to talk about their lives and get support and this
is very important. Most of the times sex workers
don’t speak about the things that they go through
and this prevents them from being free. By telling
their stories they let the pain go. They tell stories
and learn new things and this only makes our
Movement stronger. (May 2015)
Similar to Pamela’s sentiments are those of the project
participants. During an interview Mimi, a 2010 Working
the City participant said,
It is important to tell my story because it’s my life.
This way I can think about my life and I can share
my story with someone. Most of the days, people
don’t want to hear what we have to say. We are
usually invisible in the world but this project can
make me feel visible. (November 2010)
Chantel, a Volume 44 Johannesburg participant and
regular contributor to the Izwi Lethu: Our Voices
newsletter project, says,
Telling my story is so powerful for me.
Everyday I look forward to writing or thinking
about my story. I want to take images that show
the way that sex workers are treated. That I am
a person. This project let me do this. It helps
me to take away stress and to know that I am
not alone. I am so grateful. (May 2015)
During an interview with Confidence, she described the
workshop as a space that allowed her to share things
about her life that she would not normally share:
Safe place, safe people. They don’t know me. It
was easy. If I was telling someone that I would
see every time I am around the corner I
wouldn’t tell the story. I don’t want to. I would
see them and think- eesh- she knows too much.
It’s better to tell someone that stays far away
from you. Even though you can see them
sometimes, they are not from here. I don’t have
to worry. Elsa, you don’t live where I live so I
can tell you my story. I am not afraid that you
know too much. (November 2010)
The workshop as a ‘healing space’ was also highlighted
during an interview with Babymez, a Volume 44
Johannesburg participant:
I come here and you tell me that I can think about
my story and decide what to share. When I come
here I am in a lesbian relationship and this is so
276 E. Oliveira
hard for me. I want to be proud of who I am but
there is too much discrimination in the world.
This time in the workshop has let me think about
these things and to realize that I am okay just the
way that I am and I realize this when I was
making my photo story. Because of this workshop
I feel better. More strong and this is good.
Importantly, the projects provide sex workers with an
opportunity to build solidarity and support with one
another. Linda Dumba, the Limpopo Sisonke
Corrdinator, said,
[. . .] the most important aspect of the projects for
us is that we get to know one another better.
Spending time together in a safe space sharing
stories with one another, learning more about each
others lives, and supporting one another when
painful stories are told, gives everyone involved a
chance to form stronger friendships and stronger
support circles. This is especially important for us
because as sex workers we face a lot of stigma and
discriminationand we face and survive too many
heartaches. Being able to talk openly and form
bonds with one another is more important than
anything that we create for the world because
without one another, without Sisonke bringing us
together, we are alone in a cruel world.
In addition to these testimonies, participants’ desire for
more involvement, the willingness to travel long
distances in order to participate in additional
opportunities and the near perfect attendance during the
workshops also indicate the research process as a
positive and empowering experience for those involved.
However, certain aspects of the projects featured in this
article can be construed as invasive. Participatory visual
research approaches are time consuming and intense
endeavours for all involved – participants and the research
team alike. Asking people to engage with their lived
experiences in ways that many of us might find invasive if
the roles were reversed begs us, as researchers, to also
consider the level of appropriateness of such methods.
The quest to produce and build knowledge about groups of
people who occupy marginal spaces can entail, and be
perceived, as an exercise of assumed power. In addition,
participatory research that involves group work, such as
those featured in this article, with marginal groups, often
means that participants will share stories of trauma and
personal accounts of pain and suffering. And, while the re-
telling of stories and speaking out about traumatic
experiences and public witness to suffering can be a healing
process (Beltran and Begun 2014), they can also trigger
negative memories and/or emotions for those listening,
including researchers.
As someone who has been involved in a range of
participatory visual and narrative projects with
marginalised groups of people – including those featured in
this article – these approaches, when used appropriately
and responsibly, cannot only unveil a wealth of information
that other more traditional methods are unable to offer, the
approach offers the possibility for a range of important
transformative moments for all involved – researchers,
participants and public audiences alike.
The sex worker–generated public outputs described in
this article not only inject vital knowledge’s into global
abolitionist discourses aiming to portray those engaged
in the sex industry as victims, they offer a group of
people who are often excluded from direct engagement
in discussions about their lives with a necessary platform
whereby they can contest and subvert, and share their
own representations of what it means to be a migrant
who sells sex.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all of the participants for
generously sharing their time, stories and experiences
with me. I would like to acknowledge our partnerships
with the Market Photo Workshop and Sisonke Sex
Worker Movement and thank all involved for their
commitment in the projects. A special thanks goes out to
Dr. Jo Vearey who has been an incredible mentor and
supervisor during my years of work at the African
Centre for Migration and Society.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
author.
FUNDING
The 2010 project was funded by Atlantic Philanthropies;
the 2013 project was funded by the Open Society
Foundation of South Africa (OSF-SA) and the Open
Society Foundation (OSF) funded the 2015 project. The
2016 Izwi Lethu project is funded by the Migration and
Health in Southern Africa project (maHp), a Wellcome
Trust Investigator Award.
NOTES
[1] The project received ethics approval from the University
of the Witwatersrand (non-medical) Ethics Committee
(H100 715).
[2] The project received ethics approval from the University
of the Witwatersrand (non-medical) Ethics Committee
(H13 06 44).

[3] The project received ethics approval from the University
of the Witwatersrand (non-medical) Ethics Committee
(H15 03 15).
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