Ricerc@Sapienza

Photovoice is a participatory action-research strategy that has
been mainly adopted to give voice to “unheard” groups. In this
article, we adapted this strategy in a study on the social representations (SRs) of sustainable energy shared by young citizens
(ages 11–12) in Narni, Italy, a small urban center with a history
intertwined with sustainable energy issues. In particular, the
study suggests that photovoice could be useful to jointly examine verbal and visual components of social representations and to
highlight communicative formats that contribute to shape SRs.
Images of sustainable energy produced by participants show
technocentric and ecocentric contents, confirming previous studies conducted with adults. Anthropocentric components also
emerge, potentially identifying a challenging figurative nucleus.
Photo-elicitation and small-group discussions show a twofold
communicative activity: reification formats and homogamic communication are used to reaffirm shared representations, and the
consensualization format is used when potentially disruptive elements for the community are at stake. Overall, results show the
potentialities of photovoice experience for SR research and suggest that photovoice could actually benefit from further in-depth
analyses of images and of communication within groups.
Implications of the results for civic engagement are discussed.