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ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ University - Department of Integrated Studies

Claudia Mitchell, Ph.D. FRSC is a James ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Professor in the Faculty of Education, ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ University, Montreal, Canada and the director of the ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Institute for Human Development and Well-being. Her research cuts across visual and other participatory methodologies in relation to youth, gender and sexuality, girls’ education, teacher identity, and critical areas of international development linked to gender and HIV and AIDS. As she acknowledges in her writing, the use of innovative visual and other arts based methodologies started with an awareness that many young people in Southern Africa were ‘sick of AIDS’ and creative arts-based methodologies (photography, video, performance, drawing, written narratives) helped to engage them in ways that would enable them to become resources to themselves and to each other. Since first becoming involved in the study of youth engagement and HIV and AIDS, Professor Mitchell has written extensively in the area of visual methodology and social change and founded the Participatory Cultures Lab. She is the author and co-editor 23 books and numerous chapters and peer-reviewed articles, many of which focus on participatory methodology and social change (working with material culture, conducting research with children and youth; teachers’ and young people’s use of cellphones to produce cellphilms; memory-work studies). Her most recent book is Girlhood and the Politics of Place (Mitchell & Rentschler). She is the co-founder and co-editor of the award winning journal Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.