Stone Soup: photo-elicitation as a learning tool in the food geography classroom

Abstract

AbstractThis paper showcases self-reflective and inclusive pedagogy using photo-elicitation in a food geography course assignment. The Stone Soup project positions students as both researchers and participant-subjects in a participant-driven photo-elicitation (PDPE) study of students' foodways. Student papers for this assignment demonstrate rich understandings of the factors enabling and constraining food practices. We suggest that PDPE has value beyond being a research tool; it can empower students as learners and can offer a quality of insight and depth of engagement that are complementary to critical themes in food studies courses.Keywords:: food geographyvisual methodologyphoto-elicitation Notes1. Throughout this paper, we use both "food practices" and "foodways." The former refers to the relatively concrete practices of consumption which can be documented in a photograph, while the latter refers to food-related habits that are necessarily situated in cultural and historical contexts, and which can be accessed through discussion of a photograph.2. By "spatial," we intend a multi-scalar meaning of the experience of space. Students' insights indicated different interpretations of "space" that ranged from personal habitation to state and regional ties. However, interpretation of spatial and scalar concepts of students' food practices was intentionally left open-ended in the assignment.3. Naturally, a host of other questions could be included, depending on the goals of the instructor.4. Other insights could be derived, as there are many applications to this approach and students each bring a unique set of competencies.