The Approach and Methods
We will adopt an inclusive and intersectional approach, working with women who have various types of disabilities to capture the diversity of their experiences and examine how gender and disabilities and other identity markers shape violence across women's lives. Recent evidence indicates that arts-based methods facilitate deeper engagement with sensitive topics such as violence against women and are empowering for survivors. To understand the diverse experiences of women with disabilities who have endured violence and to develop resources on prevention, safeguarding, and behavioural change, we will employ a trauma informed approach using creative, participatory, and arts-based methodologies, including PhotoVOICE 2.0, body mapping, clay embodiment, and rivers of life. These co-creative and participatory methods will enable survivors with disabilities to be involved as participant-researchers in our study.
We have co-designed and tested our methods with participants with disabilities during a a method experimentation workshop n South Africa on 27 and 28 February2025. This workshop allowed us to adapt our methods and approach to ensure accessibility and inclusion and care and self-care for our participants and the team. Through the arts, we will co-develop a set of creative resources that highlight the drivers and impacts of violence on women with disabilities, outlining strategies to improve responses and initiate prevention. Our research will benefit survivors of violence against women with disabilities in South Africa and has the potential to inform interventions in other contexts.
Understanding Violence Among Women with Disabilities using PhotoVOICE 2.0
PhotoVOICE 2.0 is an innovative research method that builds upon the original PhotoVOICE framework, integrating modern digital technologies to enhance participant engagement and data collection. This ethnographic approach allows researchers to gain deep insights into the lived experiences of participants through visual storytelling. Participants use mobile technologies to share photos, voice notes, sign language videos, and text messages, creating a rich, multimedia narrative of their experiences. PhotoVOICE 2.0 is particularly effective for exploring sensitive topics, as it empowers participants to express themselves creatively and authentically. PhotoVOICE 2.0 will enable us to deeply understand the everyday experiences of violence among women with disabilities over an eight-week period. Throughout the eight weeks, participant-researchers will capture their experiences and ideas about violence through photos, voice notes, text messages, and sign language videos. At the end of this period, we will facilitate a two-day session where each participant-researcher will analyse and interpret their collected data.
Using Body mapping and Clay Emb0diment to capture lived experiences of violence
We will use body mapping -and its clay embodiment adaptation (Ong 2023). These are forms of embodied storytelling that lend themselves to the exploration of bodily and psychological experiences . Body mapping has long roots in South Africa where it was first used as an art-therapy tool with women with HIV (De Jager et al 2016). Body mapping enables the discussion of difficult and sensitive topics due to stigma and taboos and contributes to healing making it suitable for research on violence including GBV (Aroussi et. al., 2022). The use of arts in research enables the inclusion of those traditionally excluded from research due to language and educational barriers (Boydell 2020). Body mapping as a method has been used with various adaptions with women with disabilities (Dew et al 2018).
The use of body mapping and clay embodiment will enable us to capture women with disabilities lived experience of violence in a safe, therapeutic and empowering environment. The use of these methods will deliver rich data comprising body maps, clay artworks, pictures, photos, videos, interviews, and focus group discussions. Body mapping and clay embodiment both enable the creators to decode, interpret, and analyse their own artworks.
Navigating Violence Using the Rivers of Life
The Rivers of Life method, which is a participatory facilitation technique that uses visual narratives to help individuals and groups reflect on their personal and collective journeys (Howard 2023; Soaita 2024) Participants are invited to draw their life stories as rivers, illustrating significant events, milestones, and turning points. This method not only fosters self-awareness and group cohesion but also provides a rich, visual means of exploring and sharing diverse experiences and perspectives. It is particularly effective in workshops and research settings where understanding the historical and emotional context of participants' lives is crucial, and like body mapping and clay embodiment is also and incredibly powerful method for creating bonds between participants.
Key Informant Interviews and Focus Groups Discussions
- A target of 60 key informant interviews KII and 8 focus group discussions FGD (6-8 participants) will be conducted with stakeholders, not just from KZN but also South Africa and international organisations and relevant stakeholders (until saturation is reached). These will include participants such as police officers, healthcare professionals, service providers, and organisations working on GBV and disability rights to assess the nature and forms of violence that they observe among women with disabilities, the systemic barriers that exist and service gaps from their perspective. It will also reveal information on what training and intervention guidelines are needed to improve the reach to women with disabilities.
- For KII and FGDs, we will use purposive sampling to recruit for initial focus groups and interviews, supplemented by snowballing as data collection goes on to ensure we engage with a wide array of relevant participants. These will be selected based on the individuals being part of a relevant public service, civil society organisations or being a community leader, and having played a relevant role in relation to GBV and disability. Identifying initial participants will be supported by project partners, and the project advisory board.
This comprehensive approach will provide a rich, nuanced understanding of the experiences of women with disabilities and contribute to developing effective resources for prevention, safeguarding, and behavioural change.