Dr Tiffany Fairey is a visual sociologist and leading photovoice and visual peace specialist with more than two decades of experience in participatory research, innovation, and practice in academic, community and NGO settings. She joined the Department of War Studies in 2019 having previously been based at University of the Arts London and co-founded and led the award-winning charity, PhotoVoice.

An established arts and peace scholar, her work is concerned with creative and lived experiences of transitional justice, conflict transformation and peacebuilding, with a specific focus on visual peace research. Her Leverhulme Fellowship project, Imaging Peace, is the first multi-country empirical study of peace photography practice, ethics and impact. An active member of the Visual Embodied Methodologies Network, she is currently focused on the ESRC-funded Intersectional Gendered Violence, having previously worked on various interdisciplinary arts and peace-building projects including AHRC funded Art & Reconciliation, Izazov, a Changing the Story project and Imaging Social Justice.

She holds a PhD in Visual Sociology from Goldsmiths, University of London and consults for universities and NGOs on photovoice and creative and mixed participatory methods and design.

Tiffany is an Everyday Peace Indicators Associate, on the advisory board of the Post-Conflict Research Centre and a member of the Inclusive Rigour Co-Lab. Her work has been recognised with various awards, including the Royal Photographic Society’s Hood Medal for outstanding advance in photography for public service. Her publications include Peace Photography: A Guide and the forthcoming monograph, Imaging Peace (2025).

Research Interests

• Peacebuilding and transitional justice
• Conflict transformation and reconciliation
• Arts-based, participatory and inclusive peace
• Visual, action research and participatory methods
• Mixed methods innovation and rigour in research and evaluation design
• Research ethics and impact
• Community arts and media practice and history

Tiffany’s is a leading visual peace scholar and participatory methods specialist. Her research focuses on arts-based, community-engaged and creative peacebuilding, conflict transformation and transitional justice. In addition she works on creative and participatory mixed research methods innovation, design and impact.

Her Imaging Peace research is creating new understandings of how the visualisation of peace and the fostering of peace through images and image-making can undermine conflict, support healing in the aftermath of war and mass violence and shape cultures of peace. Her current work on Intersectional Gendered Violence with Professor Rachel Kerr focuses on creative responses to gendered violence in the context of war and genocide and what these do to support repair, reparations and prevention.

Teaching

• Culture, Rights and Justice (MA-online)
• Photovoice and participatory visual methods
• Creative and arts-based research methods

Publications

Books

• Fairey, T. 2025 (forthcoming). Imaging Peace. How People Use Photography to Transform Conflict, Resist Violence and Build Community. Edinburgh University Press.
• Fairey, T. and Ingrid Guyon. 2025. Peace Photography: A Guide. Kings College London (available in French and Spanish).

Articles and Chapters

• Fairey, T. (2024). ‘The Home Stay Exhibitions: the home and the image as hyperlocal sites of peace-building.’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.
• Fairey, Tiffany. (2023) ‘Peace Is Possible: The Role of Strategic Narratives in Peacebuilding’. Journal of Media, War & Conflict. Open Access.
• Fairey, T, Cubillos, E., Muñoz,M (2023) ‘Photography and Everyday Peacebuilding. Examining the impact of photographing everyday peace in Colombia.’ Peacebuilding.
• Fairey, T., Firchow, P. and Dixon, P. (2022) ‘Images and Indicators: mixing participatory methods to build inclusive rigour’, Action Research. Open Access.
• Fairey, Tiffany & Rachel Kerr. 2020. ‘What Works? Creative Approaches to Transitional Justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina.’ International Journal of Transitional Justice. Vol 14, Issue 1, p142-156.
• Fairey, Tiffany & Orton, L (eds). 2019. ‘Photography As Dialogue’. Special Issue: Photography As Dialogue. Photography & Culture. Vol 12, Issue 3.

Chapters

• Fairey, T. (2024). ‘Community and Participatory Photography as Peace Photography. Cases from Latin America.’, in Picturing Peace. Albeson, T & Mitchel, J (eds). Bloomsbury.
• Beller, Rasmus, Fairey, Tiffany & Frank Möller. (2024) ‘Peace Photography and Visual Peacebuilding.’ In The Routledge Handbook of Conflict and Peace Communication. Stacey Connaughton & Stefanie Pukallus (Editors). Routledge.
• Fairey, Tiffany. 2018. ‘Participatory Arts and Peace-Building: Embodying and Challenging Reconciliation’. In Participatory Arts for Invisible Communities: PAIC; Irena Sertić (Ed), 204–14. Omnimedia.

Other

• Firchow, P, Fairey T & Selim, Y, (2021) ‘How photography can build peace and justice in war-torn communities’, The Conversation.
• Fairey, T, Kerr, R, Petrovic, J & Gow, J (2020), New Bearings in Post-Conflict Evaluation: A Principle-Based Approach. King's College London, London.
• Fairey, Tiffany. 2017. ‘The Arts in Peace-Building and Reconciliation: Mapping Practice’. Art & Reconciliation Working Paper Series.

For a full list of publications see Tiffany’s PURE page.