On Making a Difference: How Photography and Narrative Produce the Short-Term Missions Experience

Short-term missions participants encounter difference in purportedly captivating ways. Current research, however, indicates the practice does not lead to long-lasting, positive change. Brian M. Howell (2012) argues the short-term missions experience is confined to the limitations of the short-term missions narrative. People who engage in short-term missions build assumptions, seek experiences, understand difference, and convey meaning, as a result of this narrative. The process of telling and retelling travel stories is integral to the short-term missions experience. Drawing upon literature on tourism, narrative, development, and photography, this study intends to evaluate the inefficacy of short-term missions through the stories which produce and are produced by photography. Through storytelling and photography from 21 short-term missions participants who have served in Ouanaminthe, Haiti, this project deconstructs the short-term missions narrative to understand, what is the relationship between the use of photography and the short-term missions experience? The results indicate a unique relationship between people, photography, and experiences within the framework of short-term missions