Presidential Professor Leith Mullings, Ph.D. Programs in Anthropology and Urban Education, The Graduate Center, directed the New York State Scholar Practitioner Project in which graduate students were awarded fellowships to work in communities in upper Manhattan and on the Lower East Side. Included in the seven-member New York State Scholar Practitioner Team were one graduate of The Graduate Center's Ph.D. Program in Anthropology who now teaches at Purchase College, SUNY, three graduate students in the program, and Professor Mullings. In their roles as activist scholars, the team administered 200 surveys, conducted focus groups, encouraged innovative projects requiring participatory action, and disseminated the results of their research through reports, newsletters, community meetings, and a photography exhibit. One of the innovative participatory action projects was the Photovoice Project, in which six women from Harlem and the Lower East Side participated. The research team members asked them, first, to take pictures that would depict the impact of welfare reform on their community and, then, to explain how a particular photograph was related to welfare reform and why it was significant. The Photovoice photographs were exhibited at a number of public forums and are now on exhibit in the office of New York City Councilman Bill Perkins. In addition, they were reproduced for the cover of The Impact of Welfare Reform on Two Communities in New York City, a report published by the New York State Scholar Practitioner Team, The Graduate Center, CUNY. The New York State Scholar Practioner Project was funded by the W.F. Kellogg Foundation.
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Anthropology/field_photovoice.html