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Thesis Chapters by Michael Chew

PhD Thesis, 2020

This practice-based enquiry explores how photovoice can be adapted to visualise and influence env... more This practice-based enquiry explores how photovoice can be adapted to visualise and influence environmental behaviour in a multi-sited context. While photography can be effective in influencing environmental behaviour change, mainstream images tend to lack engaging narratives due to being predominantly generic and technology focused.
Participatory photography methods such as photovoice offer alternatives through engaging communities directly to generate site-responsive photographs and stories. However, this exclusively local focus can neglect broader opportunities for empathy and cross-cultural engagement. I respond by integrating multi-sited dimensions into photovoice processes, through a design-based participatory action research approach that explores three interrelated research orientations – adapt, visualise, and influence – corresponding to the creation, analysis and audience engagement with photo-stories respectively.
I first develop novel multi-sited photovoice design and implementation methods across different scales through adapting participatory workshop processes with youth in urban sites across Bangladesh, China and Australia. I then analyse the visualisations of environmental behaviour depicted in the resulting photo-stories, affirming these methods’ efficacy and inviting expanded considerations of agency and subjectivity in environmental behaviour. Finally, I explore the influence of the photo-stories themselves on environmental behaviour through designing unique participatory audience engagement processes within exhibition, interview and collaborative formats. I employ a mixed-methods approach encompassing qualitative content analysis and actor network theory across these three research orientations to affirm the importance of materiality, relationality and empathy to participation and visualisation of environmental behaviour.
This enquiry establishes an original open photovoice method encompassing these combined novel creation and audience engagement practices. This affirms the importance of bringing global perspectives to local photovoice practices, contributing to research in visual research methods. These learnings have the potential to significantly improve the effectiveness of multi-sited participatory action research and environmental behaviour change programs.

Papers by Michael Chew

Water, 2014

Sustainable use of groundwater is becoming critical in India and requires effective participation... more Sustainable use of groundwater is becoming critical in India and requires effective participation from local communities along with technical, social, economic, policy and political inputs. Access to groundwater for farming communities is also an emotional and complex issue as their livelihood and survival depends on it. In this article, we report on transdisciplinary approaches to understanding the issues, challenges and options for improving sustainability of groundwater use in States of Gujarat and Rajasthan, India. In this project, called Managed Aquifer Recharge through Village level Intervention (MARVI), the research is focused on developing a suitable participatory approach and methodology with associated tools that will assist in improving supply and demand management of groundwater. The study was conducted in the Meghraj watershed in Aravalli district, Gujarat, and the Dharta watershed in Udaipur district, Rajasthan, India. The study involved the collection of hydrologic, agronomic and socio-economic data and engagement of local village and school communities through their role in groundwater monitoring, field trials, photovoice activities and education campaigns. The study revealed that availability of relevant and reliable data related to the various aspects of groundwater and developing trust and support between local communities, NGOs and government agencies are the key to moving towards a dialogue to decide on what to do to achieve sustainable use of groundwater. The analysis of long-term water table data indicated considerable fluctuation in groundwater levels from year to year or a net lowering of the water table, but the levels tend to recover during wet years. This provides hope that by improving management of recharge structures and groundwater pumping, we can assist in stabilizing the local water table. Our interventions through Bhujal Jankaars (BJs), (a Hindi word meaning "groundwater informed" volunteers), schools, photovoice workshops and newsletters have resulted in dialogue within the communities about the seriousness of the groundwater issue and ways to explore options for situation improvement. The BJs are now trained to understand how local recharge and discharge patterns are influenced by local rainfall patterns and pumping patterns and they are now becoming local champions of groundwater and an important link between farmers and project team. This study has further strengthened the belief that traditional research approaches to improve the groundwater situation are unlikely to be suitable for complex groundwater issues in the study areas. The experience from the study indicates that a transdisciplinary approach is likely to be more effective in enabling farmers, other village community members and NGOs to work together with researchers and government agencies to understand the groundwater situation and design interventions that are holistic and have wider ownership. Also, such an approach is expected to deliver longer-term sustainability of groundwater at a regional level.

Water access issues pose continual problems for villages in arid areas of Rajasthan, India, and t... more Water access issues pose continual problems for villages in arid areas of Rajasthan, India, and the common response has been technological solutions through water management projects. Qualitative participatory research can provide alternative approaches to these issues, and this paper reflects on one such project run as part of a larger scale development evaluation program. The project used a participatory photography process to allow villagers to take and select photographs that represented what water meant to them in the present and future, along with how they saw their own responsibilities these areas. The complex visual and textual data was analysed using two different analytical processes – a positivist ‘measurement’ approach in line with the water management paradigm, and an alternative actor network ‘relational’ approach.

There is a well-established literature on the macro-scale health and environmental impacts of urb... more There is a well-established literature on the macro-scale health and environmental impacts of urbanisation in Asia. However, a key but often-neglected effect of this urbanisation is the growing psychological disconnection of the population from surrounding natural environments. The first part of this paper sets out the context of disconnection on the interconnected perceptual and imaginative levels. The second part introduces eco-phenomenology as a theoretical and methodological process to explore the potential for deeper human-nature engagement. The third part of the paper presents and discusses results from the author’s first-person phenomenological inquiry into human-nature interactions in the context of Dhaka. The fourth part then briefly sketches out opportunities for redeveloping an ecologically grounded perception and imagination that can contribute to a sustainable Asian urbanism.

This paper presents a phenomenological investigation of my myopia to explore key questions in eco... more This paper presents a phenomenological investigation of my myopia to explore key questions in eco-psychology. I examine how the lived experience of seeing through this ‘impaired’ visual condition can actually provide insights into our relationships with human society and the natural world. Through expanding our aesthetic appreciation of the world around us, while deepening our awareness of our own embodiment, myopic vision gestures towards new forms of intersubjectivity that soften the boundaries of self, culture, and nature – carrying with them the potential for meaningful cultural change.

This paper explores how principles of critical pedagogy and transformational learning operated in... more This paper explores how principles of critical pedagogy and transformational learning operated in a series of photography workshops ran with multicultural youth.

This paper explores the relationship between self-perceptions of agency and transformational expe... more This paper explores the relationship between self-perceptions of agency and transformational experiences amongst young self-identified social change agents. The extent that these experiences manifest on a social compared to individual level is explored through transformational learning theory.

This paper explores self-perceptions of agency amongst returned volunteers through two processes ... more This paper explores self-perceptions of agency amongst returned volunteers through two processes – reflection-action workshops, and individual interviews. These processes reveal the different ways in which the relationship to self and world are transformed through returning home, and suggest the importance of continued critical engagement.

This paper explores various concepts of transformative leadership in the theory and operation of ... more This paper explores various concepts of transformative leadership in the theory and operation of a pilot social change project, the Pledge Project. In particular it critically explores how the transformative concepts of expanded identification and distributive leadership operate in the project.

This paper documents a pilot community project that used strategic questioning to provide a criti... more This paper documents a pilot community project that used strategic questioning to provide a critical reflective space for exploring questions of personal agency and social change. Section 1 presents the project’s theoretical context, outlining the importance of transformational learning for environmental education, together with reflection, future visioning, and commitment making. Section 2 outlines the project’s methodology through an action-learning process within a community of practice. Section 3 discusses the project’s key findings, and Section 4 present’s future directions for the project.

This paper presents an analysis of the participatory mapping project OurMelbourne2050. It explore... more This paper presents an analysis of the participatory mapping project OurMelbourne2050. It explores how differing conceptions of imagination operate in the project’s conceptual basis and its actual operation. These aspects of imagination – the ecological imagination, utopian futures, the cartographic imagination, and collective visioning - present different lenses through which to examine the project’s effectiveness and to understand the multiple imaginative processes embedded in the project’s operation.

The distributed aspect of transformative leadership see functions as not restricted to individual... more The distributed aspect of transformative leadership see functions as not restricted to individual leaders themselves, but instead emerging through their relationships with others and their operating environments. This concept implies a creative tension arising from the relationship between the part and the whole, or the individual and group. This paper consider this relationship and how it is expressed through three selected articles.

PhD Thesis, 2020

Water, 2014