Visusal Methods in Social Research

Banks, Marcus. (2001). London, UK: Sage.

Banks introduces ways to incorporate visual images into social science research. According to him, anthropology has been a pioneer of using visual images as a form of visual anthropology. But he noted a growing body of literature on visual research in other disciplines in social science research in 1990s, and yet, methodological insights was confined to specific areas, such as the production of ethnographic films. Thus he presents some alternative methods and some advantages of using visual images. However, this book is heavily focused on photography. Acknowledging this, Banks found an advantage of using still photos for research in its ubiquity in modern society:

Still photography is a medium available to almost everyone in the world as either producer or consumer. and examples form the use of still photography can often serve to points arising from the use of all or most visual media . . . (p. x)

About photo-elicitation:
Banks introduced photo-elicitation. "It involves using photography to invoke comments, memory and discussion in the course of a semi-structure interview" (p. 87). Photos become the basis of discussion and provoking vague memories. Collier and Collier (1986, Visual anthropology: Photography as a research method), who pioneered photo elicitation (using archival photos), pointed out that photos can contribute to lessen awkwardness that interviewees might feel: eliminating direct eye contact and awkward silence. Banks pointed out that photo-elicitation is not straightforward in practice because of issues of photographic multivocality and the complexity of relationship between photo objects and human social relations. In this light, he discussed the use of other types of photos. Further, he argued for the potential of collaborative research through photo-elicitation. He wrote:

"Rather, the introduction of photographs to interviews and conversations sets off a kind of chain reaction: the photographs effectively exercise agency, causing people to do and think things they had forgotten, or to see things they had always known in a new way, . . . (p. 98)

For Banks, the term "method" is inseparable from theory and analysis , and yet, no less important than the others, because it makes social research an "an engagement, not an exercise in data collection" (p. 179) by letting research subjects co-operate with researchers, if not participate, in the research process based on their knowledge of their lives. He implies using visual images can be one of such methods.

The last paragraph well summarizes his view of images in research:

"Images exist materially in the world, are involved in particular and specific huamn social relations. Their meanings are historically and socially embedded, told through their internal and external narratives. They have authors and consumers, they are attributed with agency and affect the agency of others. All these features are discernible, documentable, and can be isolated for analysis and comparison. The practitioners of visual social research who bemoan the lack of attention paid to their labours are, in some ways, missing the point. Visual images are ubiquitous in the lives of work of those who study and those who are studied. There is no lack of attention paid to the visual, merely a failure of perspective." (p. 179)

[Despite his beginning tone that research projects can be done without visual images, but with them research becomes different, his final tone is very strong and positive on what researchers can do with visual images.]