Visual Methods

1. Visual Methods DTC Qualitative Research Methods Dr Alice Mah Department of Sociology a.a.mah@warwick.ac.uk

3. Lecture Outline • Visual sociology and visual methods • Discussion (10 minutes) I. Analysing existing images II. Producing visual methods during fieldwork • Ethnography • Photo-elicitation interviews • Spatial visual methods • Discussion (10 minutes) • Conclusions • Break and the Workshop

4. Visual sociology • ‘Seeing comes before words… and establishes our place in the surrounding world.’ (John Berger, 1977, Ways of Seeing, p. 7) • Visual material is a central to the social realm, not simply a way we can study. We cannot understand social life without considering the visual aspects of social life. • Brief history of visual methods: 19th-20th century: photo-journalists and documentary photographers, use of film and photography in social anthropology, social investigators and social reformers as photographers; visual sociology established in 1980s, developed in the 1990s, and is now increasingly popular (digital age). • Visual methodologies produce rich data, are open to a range of interpretations, and can provide insights into producers of visual material, consumers of visual material, and social contexts of image production and consumption.

5. Visual methods • Three types of visual methods (Banks, 2001): • making visual representations (studying society by producing images) • examining pre-existing visual representations (studying images for information about society) • collaborating with social actors in the production of visual representations • Different types of visual material • two-dimensional pictures- drawings, maps, diagrams and charts, photographs, paintings, etc. • moving or electronic images, for example TV, video and film, websites • material objects themselves, such as toys, homes, streets, signs • Visual methods can be used as stand-alone methods or as complementary with other qualitative methods such as interviews and participant observation.

6. Discussion: 10 minutes What insights can the production and/or analysis of visual materials contribute to our understanding of the social world? What disadvantages does their use have?

7. I. Analysing existing images (e.g. from an archive, a family album) • What we seek to do is to ‘place photographs in the social world, bringing them “to life”’ (McAllister 2006)* • Some suggested methods of analysis: • Banks- analyse the internal and external narrative • Rose- meaning is produced at three sites, so need to explore all of them • Chalfen’s ‘events’ • Numerous other concepts and methods, e.g. ‘memory work’ (Hirsh 1999, Kuhn et al 2006) • Think which works better for your picture, use to set yourself questions, focus your vision. *K. E. McAllister (2006) ‘Locating memory’ in A.Kuhnand K.E. McAllister (2006) Locating Memory , NY: Berghaus Books, p. 1.

8. Analysing existing images: Banks To understand the meaning of an image, need to find and use clues to produce two stories: • The external narrative—‘the social context that produced the image and the social relations within which the image is embedded at any moment of viewing’. • The internal narrative… ‘its content, the story that the image communicates’ . Identifying the external and internal narrative: • The materiality of the picture may provide many clues; you can derive clues from the photograph by considering it as an object as well as an image. Helpful to know what is written on back, whether postcard or snapshot, etc. • If the picture is in an archive, it will help to know which file it is in (Which other pictures? Whose documents are they? How were they used?). You may need to do further research (Can you identify the people in the picture through other sources?) (Marcus Banks 2003, p. 11)

9. Analysing existing images: Rose The ‘sites’ at which the meanings of an image is constructed: • The site of the production of the image • The site of the image itself • The sites where it is viewed by various audiences, who are reading and using it in various ways. (Rose, 2001, p. 16-32)

10. Analysing existing images: Chalfen • Think of photograph as a series of events that went into its making and use- for instance planning the picture behind the camera when taking it, what was happening front of the camera, what was happening at each different times of use. Then we can ask questions ask about each state the following questions: • Who were the participants? • In which setting did the events take place? • Which topics were addressed? (family relationships, for instance) • What message form does the image take? (Christmas card) • What code is it embedded in? (realistic, romantic, etc) (Chalfen 2000)

11. Analysing existing images: compositional analysis • Content--what story does the picture tell? • Colour -- hue, saturation (vividness, depth), value (lightness, darkness) • Spatial organization • Focus-what position are we offered as a viewer? • Light- type and intensity of light (candlelight, daylight, etc) • Expressive content--the ‘feel’ of the image

12. Example: Family albums and domestic photography (Rose 2003; Chalfen 2000) • Interest originates with feminist sociology and art studies in the 1980s • Brings social character of the private sphere into the picture • (Changing) character of gender relations is illuminated by family snaps • Cultural variability of family photography and its uses, including their display in albums, in domestic space, etc.

13. II. Producing visual data during fieldwork • taking photographs or videos from field research to illustrate/reveal research themes • photo-elicitation interviews • participant photography or video recording • ‘spatial’ visual methods (ethnographic and site observations: body language, streets, buildings, public places, movements, gestures, social interactions, walking methods) • drawing maps and diagrams • discussing photographs, images, or other visual materials with informants • visual diaries (your own or your informants’) * We will focus on just a few of the many possibilities here…

14. Photographs in fieldwork Elizabeth Chaplin (2002) ‘The Residents of South London Road’

15. Photo-elicitation interviews • Photo-elicitation interviews: researchers introduce photographs into the interview context • Photographs may be researcher-produced, existing photographs, or produced by research participants • Three main uses of photographs (Harper, 2002): • As visual inventories of people, objects and artefacts • As depictions of events that are part of collective or institutional paths (photographs of schools or events) • As intimate dimensions of the social (photos of family, friends, the self, the body) • Advantages: ease rapport, provide structure, prompt questions, richer data, greater balance of power dynamics • Challenges: confidentiality, ethics, trust, technical skill, sensitivity to context, power relations

16. Example of photo-elicitation ‘auto-driven’ interview instructions, Clark-Ibáñez

17. Clark-Ibáñez: photo-elicitation images

18. Clark-Ibáñez: photo-elicitation images

19. Byrne and Doyle: photo-elicitation with focus groups, using existing mining images

20. Byrne and Doyle: photo-elicitation with focus groups, using existing mining images

21. Les Back: participant street photography, Brick Lane, East London

22. Les Back: participant street photography, Brick Lane, East London

23. Pink and Mackley:Using videos for visual social research http://www.socresonline.org.uk/17/1/3.html ‘Experiencing place with video’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwhROWpH9lc&feature=player_embedded

24. Spatial visual methods • ‘Spatial’ visual methods: concerned with relationships between people and places/spaces (communities, cities, neighbourhoods, homes, public spaces, parks, rural spaces, natural spaces, confined places, policed places, political places) • Diary-photo diary-interview method (Latham), time-space diagram, diary, photo and interview as complementary • Material culture studies (Miller) people’s relationships with objects, photos, materials • Site observations (drawing maps, photographing areas of research; spatial part of ethnographic lens) • Mobile methods: researching while on the move (participant and/or researcher), conducive to spatial research

25. Spatial visual methods: walking methods and psychogeography • ‘Walking whilst talking’ (or driving or on public transport): research participants guide researchers through places: city streets, neighbourhoods, shops, churches, parks, and talk about meanings, memories and ideas related to places. Informal, good for rapport, multi-sensory, rich material. • Psychogeography: researchers explore the social and psychological impacts of places on people; primary method through researcher walking and observing. Earlier antedecents: Walter Benjamin’s flaneur and George Simmel’sMetropolis and Mental Life, 1903; ‘founded’ by Guy Debord 1955, contemporary example: Ian Sinclairs’sLondon Orbital). Criticisms: spectator/voyeuristic/detached/popular.

26. Research example: Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place (Mah 2012) • See in particular chapter 5 ‘Reading landscapes of ruination, deprivation, and decline,’ pp. 129-152 • Outlines social and spatial analysis approach of ‘reading’ social and spatial landscapes of industrial and urban decline • Combines visual, spatial, mobile, and ethnographic methods

27. Driving tours with research participant in Ivanovo, Russia: Mah

28. Driving tour with research participant (taxi driver) in Walker, Newcastle: Mah

29. Discussion (10 minutes) • What are some key ethical issues that relate to using visual methods in fieldwork? • How might these ethical issues be addressed?

30. Conclusions • Visual methods capture multi-dimensional, rich data. • Analysing photographic images gives us insight into the social institutions, like the family, and social practices in which they are produced and viewed. • The production of visual images is itself a social practice which helps to define and constitute social life. • We can use images to gain a vivid view of how people see themselves and their environments, and how they locate themselves within them. • Participant photography can give us greater access to marginalised groups and to sensitive topics (but risk of power imbalance and ‘using’ vs. empowering /giving real ‘voice’) . • Ethical issues of confidentiality, informed consent, trust and power relations.