PhotoKwento: co-constructing women's narratives of disaster recovery

A recent appraisal of disaster studies undertaken over the past 40 years draws attention to the urgency of advancing different epistemologies that reflect local realities of disaster experiences and of developing appropriate instruments with which to do so. This paper argues that feminist methods and perspectives can contribute greatly to this important endeavour of promoting epistemic diversity in research on disasters, advancing approaches that engender the co-construction of knowledge, and consequently challenging the ‘hegemonic’ (and often gender-blind) narratives that dominate disaster studies today. Specifically, the paper makes a case for a feminist photo-based approach that I designed (PhotoKwento) to examine women's experiences of disaster recovery in Tacloban City, Philippines. It demonstrates how the technique fosters engaged research relationships and participatory knowledge construction practices pertaining to disaster experiences. In addition, it highlights the potential of PhotoKwento to embody the qualities of research that are necessary for the progress of disaster studies ‘from below’.