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Contribution short abstract:

Based on a fieldwork with Rwandan sex workers, I argue that art-based participatory methods offer interlocutors means to engage themselves in research. Photo-elicited narratives, a fashion photo shoot and a visual workshop created trust and intimacy between myself and my interlocutors.

Contribution long abstract:

Based on my yearlong fieldwork experience, conducted in Rwanda in 2019, I argue that art-based participatory methods and practical hands-on workshops offer ways for the research interlocutors to immerse themselves further in research. I study Rwandan female and trans sex workers' cosmopolitan practises and livelihoods. Early on in my research, I discovered that the post-genocide society (silence, trauma and issues of trust) as well as the stigma associated with my interlocutors (illegal status quo) made interviewing and participant observation at times challenging. What is more, the Ebola outbreak during my fieldwork forced me to implement novel ways to continue my research. By providing disposable cameras to my interlocutors and by studying their personal photo archives I conducted photo-elicited narratives. Together with a local artist, I organised a fashion photo shoot, which helped to understand my interlocutors' aesthetic inspirations and performances. Finally, I organised a visual workshop, where my interlocutor made collages of images that represented their future dreams and desires. Integrating hands-on and art-based participation methods led me to discover aspects that would have otherwise been unseen. What is more, these interactions created trust and intimacy between myself and my interlocutors. To conclude, feminist, hands-on and art-based participatory methods can relieve some of the hierarchies and hindering dynamics in ethnographic research and at their best offer means to do research in the challenging (post) pandemic world.