Where’s Waldo?
Emma began to see the world through a different lens on a routine shopping trip. She had been spending time with Muslims in a project that used amateur photography to build interfaith understanding. During a recent meeting, Emma’s new Muslim friend Abeer shared a photo of a trendy clothing store in the mall and described the frustration of not being able to find clothes that fit her religious values. “If we had stores for Muslim women,” Abeer lamented, “then it would be easier for us to find the kind of clothes that our religion wants us to wear.” Another Muslim participant in her group named Widad presented a photograph of halal meat and shared about the challenge of finding it at a reasonable price.
Photo 1. Learning to see everyday life through the lens of someone else helps to build understanding and empathy.
Abeer, Widad, and Emma were involved in an Interfaith Photovoice (IFPV) project in Fredericton, New Brunswick (Canada). Over the course of five meetings, they shared and discussed photographs they composed about religion in everyday life. As the project progressed, participants began to see the world through one another’s lenses. And while at the mall and market, some of these photos came to Emma’s mind:
I was at the mall last week, walking around looking around at clothing. And I was seeing it through the lens of [Muslim] modesty and I was like, “Wow, this would be really alienating.” Or when I was at Victory Market doing groceries, [I thought] “wow, this halal meat is really expensive.” And even just looking around Fredericton and seeing that it's still not very diverse. I think that's something that I really gained from this project, because it’s just not a lens that I had. I studied diversity, but actually hearing people's experiences and how enmeshed they are in the structure of the community was really eye-opening. . . . Seeing that halal meat you’re like, “Wow, that is in Victory Market. I go there! What’s great about those photos is you are confronted with this perspective . . . But I don't see this.”
The experience of narratives and photographs about religion in everyday life, like the ones that came to mind for Emma while shopping, is reminiscent of a Where’s Waldo? book. These popular books feature a red-white-and-blue clad individual named Waldo (or Wally outside the USA). At the beginning of a book one is introduced to Waldo and characters such as his dog Woof, friend Wenda, Waldo’s nemesis Odlaw (Waldo spelled backwards), Wizard Whitebeard, a cadre Wally Watchers (25 or more per book) who all dress like Waldo, and an inventory of objects (Waldo’s key, a scroll, Woof’s bone, Odlaw’s binoculars, etc.), all of which are tucked away in clever drawings throughout the book. This checklist primes readers to know what to look for as they scour the scenes in the book. Over time, an experienced reader of Where’s Waldo? becomes more efficient at finding the people and objects. Not only do they know who and what to look for, they learn how to find them. After searching for a character or object, once they are found, one wonders how they overlooked something that now jumps off the page.
In an Interfaith Photovoice project, photographs seem to operate in a similar way. As a participant engages in conversations, the photos incorporated into discussions can encapsulate ideas and solidify memories. The photographs, people, and stories they represent act like a set of prompts that can encourage mindful attentiveness. Someone like Emma may develop a heightened awareness of things like halal meat. As she goes about her daily life, her proverbial antennae are up. She is on the lookout for cultural products, behaviors, and beliefs that she previously may have overlooked. It is as though a new character is visible on the pages of Emma’s everyday life and she wonders, where’s Widad?
Seeing photographs and hearing stories about someone else’s life in an interfaith meeting invites participants to step back from their taken-for-granted everyday lives and to see the world from a new perspective. Emma began to see differently. While at the mall, Emma was on the lookout for clothing her friend Abeer could wear. She was struck by the narrow selection of products at the grocery store for Muslim customers like Widad. While Emma may have studied diversity as a sociology graduate student, she was “confronted” with the perspective of her friends through their photographs in a more personal way. And doing so in the context of an Interfaith Photovoice project cultivated the appreciative knowledge, understanding, and empathy that would encourage her to recognize that aspects of Abeer and Widad’s daily lives “would be really alienating.”
Emma’s experience highlights the ways Interfaith Photovoice can encourage learning and understanding. For her, it invited her to gaze upon everyday objects like clothing and food with a new set of categories. The Muslim lenses offered perspectives Emma may not have considered previously. Photos carried around in her mind’s eye like a page from a Where’s Waldo? book provided Emma with a way to consider the experiences and emotions of being a religious minority, a phenomenon she regarded as “really alienating.” While she had studied diversity as a sociology graduate student, the photovoice project helped her to grasp connections between what she already knew and the lived experiences of minorities. Likewise, these new understandings strengthened the connections between them. When the visual narratives presented by Abeer and Widad “confronted” Emma, they enhanced her abilities to perceive, reason, and feel, not just about her friends but also in a more general sense about the daily lives of people like them.
Activity 8
How about you? Have other peoples’ photographs and stories shown up in your everyday life, like Emma? What did these visual narratives help you to see? If you had an experience like this, be sure to share it with your conversation partner(s).