We've been framed: visualising methodology

Holliday, Ruth. (2000). The Sociological Review, 48 (4), 503-521.

Holliday asserts that reflexivity, alongside with multivocality, has arisen as an outcome of the post-colonial critique of the ethnocentrism of anthropology. She contends that multivocality, however, loses some of its criticality. She quotes Trinh (Visualizing theory : selected essays from V.A.R., 1990-1994, Author:Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Ed.). Trinh's interview with Nancy Chang.(1994). p.440):

"Multivocality...is not necessarily a solution to the problems of centralized and hierarchical knowledge when it is practised accumulatively--by juxtaposing voices that continue to speak within identified boundaries. Like the much abused concept of multiculturalism, multivocality here could also lead to the bland 'melting-pot' type of attitude, in which 'multi' means 'no'--no voice--or is used only to better mask the Voice--that very place from where meaning is put together.

As to reflexivity, Holliday argues, "Reflexivity is the latest in a long line of ... techniques aimed at ensuring the production of greater degrees of 'truth'," thus it can be viewed as a pseudo-positivist approach concerning greater truth.
Holliday stresses video as a confessional medium quoting from Michael Renov (1996, “Video Confessions” in Resolutions: Contemporary video Practices, Univ. of Minnesota Press):
In the case of video confessions, the virtual presences of a partner—the imagined other effectuated by the technology—turns out to be a more powerful facilitator of emotion than flesh-and-blood interlocutors. Camera operators, sound booms, cables, and clapperboards are hardly a boon to soul confession. (pp. 88-89; as cited on page 511)

Holliday’s argument about the power of video diaries in exploring one’s subjectivity is tied with this insight into video as a confessional medium. She wrote:

In terms of the video diaries, then, the power to present one’s subjectivity may override the risk of having that speech appropriated by others (for example, academics). Thus, the fullest confession opens up the greatest space to talk and affords the greatest power at that moment. (p. 512)

[In a participatory video, an interviewing situation may be similar to this confessional setting, for interviewers are much closer to interviewees compared with academics. Thus interviewees’ subjectivity can be more freely expressed and thus the medium of video can be more reflexive in bring out the lived/embodied experience of the interviewees.]

Holliday proposes video diaries as a “Queer Methodology” that “disrespects and disrupts disciplinary boundaries and discriplines”(p. 516) and an unconventional format of academic text.