This arts-based photographic research project consists of three written chapters and two creative works. The dissertation develops a focus on aesthetics, stories, and communities through photographic inquiry, which expands conceptualizations of visual research methodologies by interweaving the indexical/imaginary, art/data, and fact/fiction. Building on the works of artists, arts-based researchers, and interdisciplinary scholarship on visual research, the written chapters engage epistemological and ontological understandings of photography in educational research, close readings of Mahtab Hussain's photography examining the transnational histories and lives of the South Asian diaspora, and a study of methodology as a lifestyle choice. One creative component is The Passport Photo Project, which forms the basis for one of the artistic products (exhibition), traces the history of passport photos and reshapes understanding of these bureaucratic objects through collaborative art-making with immigrants and refugees. The second creative component is a photobook, Notes from the City, which offers photo-textual vignettes about migration, home, and belonging. Taken together, this dissertation demonstrates the multifarious possibilities for photography as theory, method, and artistic practice, while also attuning to the ethical questions that are yet to be addressed by educational researchers as we see drastic shifts in the role of the visual in our everyday lives.
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