INTERACTIVE DIGITAL FOTONOVELAS: COMMUNITY ENGAGED RESEARCH

LeighAnna Hidalgo

UCLA’s Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies

NACCS – Salt Lake City, Utah

April 10th, 2014

Overview

What is a Fotonovela

History of Fotonovelas

Geneology of Augmented Fotonovelas

Augmented Fotonovelas in Community

Engaged Research

1. What is a Fotonovela

• In 1940s, designed as tactile representations of correlated movies.

• In Spain, Italy Portugal, Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

• Photographs, text, and dialogue bubbles.

2. Fotonovelas in Latin America

• In 1960s, 23 movies were featured in fotonovelas, while 3 times that were based on original content

• In 1980s, 70 million fotonovelas published in Mexico per month.

• 3 types emerge:• Novelas rosas

• Novelas suaves

• Novelas verdes

3.Fotonovelas in the U.S.

Scholars& Community Organizers have noted potential of fotonovelas for:

Public health interventions

• Familiar to Spanish-speaking immigrants

Literacy and research

• Accessible to populations with low literacy levels

NDLON

• Informing migrant workers about their rights

Liberatory social interventions

Preface: Augmented Fotonovelas are

grounded in my “cultural intuition:

1. one’s personal experience,

2. the existing literature

3. one’s professional experience

4. and the analytical research process itself(Delgado Bernal, 1998, p.563).

Chicana Feminist

Epistemology

4. Professional and Personal Experiences

Undergraduate Researcher

South Phoenix Research Collective

Moments Before Engaging in Non-

violent Civil Disobedience when SB

1070 passed

5. “Predatory Financial, Legal, and Political Landscapes in Phoenix, Arizona”

Augmented FotonovelasBringing the fotonovela into the digital age:

• Video ethnographies

• Increasing access

• Multi-modal-online and print

• Augmented reality and smartphones

6. Video of Augmented Reality

7. Theoretical Lens and Methodology

Augmented Fotonovelas

Epistemelogical Framework: Chicana

Feminist Epistemology

Academic Discipline: Chicana/o Studies

Conceptual Framework: Community Cultural

Development

Theoretical Framework: Critical Race Theory in

Educaiton

Conceptual Framework: Critical Race Spatial Analysis

Academic Discipline: Visual Anthropology

“El Plan de Santa Barbara” (1969)

• Outlines Chicanos commitment to the community:

• Research programs

• Publication programs

• Community cultural and social action centers

Community Engaged

Research

8. “L@s Desaparecid@s”

9. “Strategies of Sobresaliendo”

10. “Casos de Justicia: Campaña Para Legalizar la Venta Ambulante”

11. Concluding Remarks

Augmented Fotonovelas

Disseminate asset-based counter-narratives celebrating Latina/o communities without sanitizing their realities.

center the role of race along with other forms of subordination and engage communities as co-collaborators in the research and artistic processes (Delgado Bernal & Solórzano, 2001).

visual counter-stories contesting dominant narratives about marginalized populations in ways accessible and meaningful in the everyday lives of Communities of Color (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).