A sourcebook for qualitative researchers. (1998). Jon Prosser (Ed.). Bristol, PA: Falmer Press.
Visual Anthropology: Image, Object and Interpretation (Marcus Banks, 9-23)
"It is the materiality of the visual that allows us to group together a diverse range of human activities and representational strategies under the banner of visual anthropology and to treat them as visual systems" (p. 12).
An Argument for Visual Sociology (Douglas Harper, 24-41)
Finding roots of visual sociology in visual ethnography and documentary photography, Harper asserts that new ethnography, in other words, post-modern ethnography, is partial true rather than complete document, thus ethnographic knowledge should bring the reader to the cultural world rather than report on it from a distance. He supports his argument with statements written by Marcus and Fischer (Anthropology as Cultural Critique, 1987, p. 135):
"Post-modern ethnography...does not move toward abstraction, away from life, but back to experience. It aims not to foster the growth of knowledge but to restructure experience; not to understand objective reality, for that is already established by common sense, nor to explain how we understand, for tha is impossible, but to reassimilate, to reintegrate the self in society and to restructure the conduct of everyday life"(quoted on page 31).
Film-making and Ethnographic Research (Paul Henley, 42-59)
According to Henley, those who deny the objectivity of cinematographic images see "the camera as a catalyst, provoking events, situations and relationships that are revealing precisely because of their atypicality" and "as the medium of a trance-like state whereby the film-maker becomes fully engaged in the lives of the films' protagonists and thereby achieves an understanding that is inaccessible to those who insist on remaining neutral and distant" (p. 43, quoted from Rouch).
Henley states that Rouch, who regarded Flaherty and Vertov as "the inspired precursors of ethnographic film-making", with Flaherty, shared a commitment to active participation with the protagonists in the creating of his films and fictionalization of their lives; with Vertov, shared a belief in the camera as a means of insight beyond everyday observable reality. Grounding in these influences, Rouch introduced documentary conventions into ethnographic documentation.
Henley finds the difficulty of theorizing documentary film in anthropology in film's communicative nature: while the dominant theoretical paradigms were grounded in generalization and abstraction until 1980s, film is concrete and particular such that it is most effective at representing the performative aspects of culture defined in the broadest sense, such as political events, religious rituals, symbolic aspects of everyday life. Recent the paradigmatic change from the positivist tradition to interpretative approaches in anthropology shed light on roles of ethnographic film-making to its strengths, Henley argues. In this paradigm, social life is not a mere expression of underlying structure but idiosyncratic and contingent to day-to-day basis of social performances of many kinds. Thus, Henley writes, "Ethnographic description thus becomes a process of describing and elucidating these performances rather than demonstrating their function or role in an abstract system" (p.51). He elaborates the strength of this shift in emphasis from general schemas to the understanding particular cases: "when greater emphasis is laid on the individual ethnographic case, contextualization can emerge from within the film, often in the form of comments made by the protagonists themselves. Over time, such comments will retain their cultural integrity and be less vulnerable to fluctuations in theoretical fashion" (p. 51).
Henley traces ethnographic film-making that involves protagonists' participation to the anthropologists at the University of Philadelphia who gave cameras to Navajo Indians and inner city teenagers in 1960s (Worth & Adair, 1972, Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in Film Communication and Anthropology). Henley notes that whereas these early experiments were motivated exclusively by academic research interests, recent collaborative ventures between researchers and indigenous film-makers tend to be more political and ask social justice.
The Status of Image-Based Research (Jon Prosser, 97-112)
Prosser overviews this article by briefing the history of visual anthropology and visual anthropology, where he finds 'fragmentation' as the root cause of its limited status in academia. He argues that fragmentation represents part of the shifting landscape of contemporary qualitative research. He quotes Ruby's penetrative argument about the reason for the peripheral status of visual anthropology:
When engaged in ethnography, the researcher must convert the complex experience of field work to words in a notebook and then transform those words onto other words shifted through analytic methods and theories. This logocentric approach to understanding denies much of the multisensory experience of trying to know another culture. The promise of visual anthropology is that it might provide an alternative way of perceiving culture-perception constructed through the lens (1996, Visual Anthropology, in D. Levinson and M. Ember (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, vol. 4, 1345-51. NY: Henry Holt and Co.)
To him, reflexivity attempts to reveal explicitly the process by which data and finding were produced. His criticism lies in that reflexivity, of which the emphasis is given to the process, is only partial in many cases: for example, The Ax Fight (1975), misses reflexive insights of inter-personal reactivity, he mentions. [He points out a very important aspect of the discourse of reflexivity, which has been so much formalistic. What about the insights of the researcher or the researched? These should be explored.]
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Picturing Culture: Exploration of Film and Anthropology
Ruby, Jay. (2000). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Exposing Yourself: Reflexivity, Anthropology and Film (pp. 151-180).
Ruby states that reflexivity is a multifaceted concept that has been used in many ways for different purposes and to be reflexive in a work of anthropology is "to insist that anthropologists systematically and rigorously reveal their methods and themselves as the instrument of data generation and reflect upon how the medium through which they transmit their work predisposes readers/viewers to construct the meaning of the work in certain ways" (p. 152). Thus, to him, reflexivity means primarily revealing producer and process, whereby is explored strictly from an anthrologist's point of view.
While exploring reflexivity in anthropological cinema, Ruby points out Chronicle of a Summer (Jean Rouch, 1961) and A Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov) as examples of anthropological cinema in that Chronicle combined personal and participatory concerns with revealing the process, which was an emphasis of A Man with a Movie Camera.
Reflexivity in Ruby's own term is a anthropologist's research practice framed in a new paradigm that explores knowledge production process. This perspective becomes explicit in his experience with Hubert Smith, a documentary filmmaker who attempted to make a reflexive documentary about Mayan culture. Ruby insisted on depicting the director's conversations with the anthropologist involved in the project as well as meetings with the consulting panel list.
Criticizing both art and science in that art (in this case, film) is perceived as an interpretation of reality and science as a mirror of reality, Ruby asks for a new theory of pictorial communication suitable for a visual anthrology. (This new theory could involve the researched's participation...I think.)
Ruby (Picturing Culture, p. 186): “Postmodern critics like George Marcus and James Clifford wish to add another goal—to make viewers aware of the constructed and tentative nature of anthropological knowledge. This admonition logically leads us into a discussion of reflexivity…Martinez (1992) has argued that these two goals should be linked. If a film is reflexively open, less authoritative, and multivocal, viewers may be more able to overcome their ethnocentric tendencies and gain some empathetic feelings for the people portrayed in the film.” –In this argument, an anthropoligist’s reflexivity reflected in an ethnographic film should achieve an ultimate goal of anthropology, which is overcoming ethnocentric tendencies among audiences and gaining empathy for people in the people.
Concerning cooperatively produced and subject-generated films, Ruby writes, “From an anthropological perspective, they offer the possibility of perceiving the world from the viewpoint of people who offer the possibility of perceiving the world from the viewpoint of people who lead lives that are different from those traditionally in control of the means of imaging the world. Subject-generated films are a tool used by some disenfranchised people in their efforts to negotiate a new cultural identity. For other indigenous and minority producers, among movies and television is a way into the profits and power of the established order. These films challenge some basic assumptions about the authorship of ethnographic films and potentially offer insight into the importance of culture in the construction of a film. This shift in authority has the potential to permanently alter ethnographic film practice” (p.196)
As examples of this practice, Ruby points out Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North and the cine-train project of Alexander Medvedkin, Dziga Vertov and others who produced films about local problems with the assistance of local political powers in the twenties and the early thirties in the Soviet Union. Another example mentioned by Ruby is the British film Housing Problems (1935, Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton), in which people speak for themselves on the screen. However, Ruby states that cooperative and subject-generated films were generally ignored until the 1960s.
As a limitation of cooperative filmmaking, Ruby argues that while a multivocal approach to the documentary empower subjects, the filmmaker still holds the ethical and intellectual responsibility for the film for reasons—lack of subjects’ editorial authorship and lack of an understanding of potential problems, etc.
As Ruby points out, a shared authority in cooperative, collaborative and community-based films brings the subject’s view of themselves to the surface and alienates the journalistic objectivity based on positivism. However, he takes a note from Sol Worth, who disputed the Challenge for Change program while writing an unpublished version of a review of You Are on Indian Land. Worth (1972, A Review of You Are on Indian Land, Draft of a review later published in a revised form in the American Anthropologist, 74 (4), 1029-31) writes, “Teaching others to make and use film was essentially teaching white middle-class values of how information films brought about gradual and democratic change. You Are on Indian Land is a perfect example of a professional white liberal film made in “consultation” with Indians.”—I AM NOT SURE AT THIS POINT ABOUT WHO MADE THE DOCUMENTARY.
Ruby asserts that sharing authority in filmmaking is difficult because collaboration requires the participants to have certain technical, intellectual and cultural parity. Thus he raises the question: if the participants are knowledgeable enough, why would they need outsiders to collaborate?
Exposing Yourself: Reflexivity, Anthropology and Film (pp. 151-180).
Ruby states that reflexivity is a multifaceted concept that has been used in many ways for different purposes and to be reflexive in a work of anthropology is "to insist that anthropologists systematically and rigorously reveal their methods and themselves as the instrument of data generation and reflect upon how the medium through which they transmit their work predisposes readers/viewers to construct the meaning of the work in certain ways" (p. 152). Thus, to him, reflexivity means primarily revealing producer and process, whereby is explored strictly from an anthrologist's point of view.
While exploring reflexivity in anthropological cinema, Ruby points out Chronicle of a Summer (Jean Rouch, 1961) and A Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov) as examples of anthropological cinema in that Chronicle combined personal and participatory concerns with revealing the process, which was an emphasis of A Man with a Movie Camera.
Reflexivity in Ruby's own term is a anthropologist's research practice framed in a new paradigm that explores knowledge production process. This perspective becomes explicit in his experience with Hubert Smith, a documentary filmmaker who attempted to make a reflexive documentary about Mayan culture. Ruby insisted on depicting the director's conversations with the anthropologist involved in the project as well as meetings with the consulting panel list.
Criticizing both art and science in that art (in this case, film) is perceived as an interpretation of reality and science as a mirror of reality, Ruby asks for a new theory of pictorial communication suitable for a visual anthrology. (This new theory could involve the researched's participation...I think.)
Ruby (Picturing Culture, p. 186): “Postmodern critics like George Marcus and James Clifford wish to add another goal—to make viewers aware of the constructed and tentative nature of anthropological knowledge. This admonition logically leads us into a discussion of reflexivity…Martinez (1992) has argued that these two goals should be linked. If a film is reflexively open, less authoritative, and multivocal, viewers may be more able to overcome their ethnocentric tendencies and gain some empathetic feelings for the people portrayed in the film.” –In this argument, an anthropoligist’s reflexivity reflected in an ethnographic film should achieve an ultimate goal of anthropology, which is overcoming ethnocentric tendencies among audiences and gaining empathy for people in the people.
Concerning cooperatively produced and subject-generated films, Ruby writes, “From an anthropological perspective, they offer the possibility of perceiving the world from the viewpoint of people who offer the possibility of perceiving the world from the viewpoint of people who lead lives that are different from those traditionally in control of the means of imaging the world. Subject-generated films are a tool used by some disenfranchised people in their efforts to negotiate a new cultural identity. For other indigenous and minority producers, among movies and television is a way into the profits and power of the established order. These films challenge some basic assumptions about the authorship of ethnographic films and potentially offer insight into the importance of culture in the construction of a film. This shift in authority has the potential to permanently alter ethnographic film practice” (p.196)
As examples of this practice, Ruby points out Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North and the cine-train project of Alexander Medvedkin, Dziga Vertov and others who produced films about local problems with the assistance of local political powers in the twenties and the early thirties in the Soviet Union. Another example mentioned by Ruby is the British film Housing Problems (1935, Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton), in which people speak for themselves on the screen. However, Ruby states that cooperative and subject-generated films were generally ignored until the 1960s.
As a limitation of cooperative filmmaking, Ruby argues that while a multivocal approach to the documentary empower subjects, the filmmaker still holds the ethical and intellectual responsibility for the film for reasons—lack of subjects’ editorial authorship and lack of an understanding of potential problems, etc.
As Ruby points out, a shared authority in cooperative, collaborative and community-based films brings the subject’s view of themselves to the surface and alienates the journalistic objectivity based on positivism. However, he takes a note from Sol Worth, who disputed the Challenge for Change program while writing an unpublished version of a review of You Are on Indian Land. Worth (1972, A Review of You Are on Indian Land, Draft of a review later published in a revised form in the American Anthropologist, 74 (4), 1029-31) writes, “Teaching others to make and use film was essentially teaching white middle-class values of how information films brought about gradual and democratic change. You Are on Indian Land is a perfect example of a professional white liberal film made in “consultation” with Indians.”—I AM NOT SURE AT THIS POINT ABOUT WHO MADE THE DOCUMENTARY.
Ruby asserts that sharing authority in filmmaking is difficult because collaboration requires the participants to have certain technical, intellectual and cultural parity. Thus he raises the question: if the participants are knowledgeable enough, why would they need outsiders to collaborate?
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment
Wang, Caroline & Burris, Mary Ann. (1997). Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369-387.
Wang and Burris define photovoice as "a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique" (p. 369). They emphasize the advantages of photovoice as a needs assessment tool: (1) it is grounded in participatory appraisal that describes the fundamentals of the community needs; (2) Photovoice employs the visual image, a powerful means to describe such needs; (3) the accessibility of photovoice enables even illiterate people to participate; (4) it facilitates the sampling of different social and behavior setting, which may be beyond the researchers' scope; (5) it can sustain community participation. etc.
However, one of the disadvantages that photovoice method may bring is, the authors point out, that "photographs are easy to gather but difficult to analyze and summarize because they yield an abundance of complex data that can eb difficult to digest" (p. 375). Participatory analysis they propose seem to provide a possible solution to the dilemma. The authors argue that to use photovoice for needs assessment, participants should be involved in selecting topics, contextualizing the meaning of a photo, and codifying that identifies issues, themes or theories. Group discussion is critical to all these processes, the authors write. They state that the group discussion may allow VOICE--voicing our indicidual and collective experience, because photogrphs alone, considered outside the context of women's own voices and stories, would contradict the essence of photovoice.
Wang and Burris define photovoice as "a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique" (p. 369). They emphasize the advantages of photovoice as a needs assessment tool: (1) it is grounded in participatory appraisal that describes the fundamentals of the community needs; (2) Photovoice employs the visual image, a powerful means to describe such needs; (3) the accessibility of photovoice enables even illiterate people to participate; (4) it facilitates the sampling of different social and behavior setting, which may be beyond the researchers' scope; (5) it can sustain community participation. etc.
However, one of the disadvantages that photovoice method may bring is, the authors point out, that "photographs are easy to gather but difficult to analyze and summarize because they yield an abundance of complex data that can eb difficult to digest" (p. 375). Participatory analysis they propose seem to provide a possible solution to the dilemma. The authors argue that to use photovoice for needs assessment, participants should be involved in selecting topics, contextualizing the meaning of a photo, and codifying that identifies issues, themes or theories. Group discussion is critical to all these processes, the authors write. They state that the group discussion may allow VOICE--voicing our indicidual and collective experience, because photogrphs alone, considered outside the context of women's own voices and stories, would contradict the essence of photovoice.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Performing Urban Collectivity
An van. Dienderen. (2007). Visual Intervention:Applied Visual Anthropology. Sarah Pink (Ed.).
Dienderen records her observation of the community film project held by an artist in an immigrant neighborhood in Brussels.
In the author's interview, one of the participants, who acted in the film, said, "I believe it was, I'm sure it was therapy for me, precisely helping me to digest what had happened to me. Just by talking about it, I freed myself. At least I felt relieved from this feeling locked inside me for such a long time" (p. 204).
The author quotes Pink's perspective about visual anthropology in social intervention, "In these projects applying visual anthropology involves promoting self awareness by representing individuals and groups to others and to themselves" (Pink, 2004:8, Visual Anthropology Review. 20(1), 3-16; as cited on p. 253). Pink calls this intervention intersubjectivity between researchers and the local, developed through reflexive process of collaboration and research.
But the artist who directed this project hired professional crew to shoot and edit the film, which seemed to entail incongruity. The author writes this aspect by quoting the concept that Raoul Ruiz used to describe a Western cinema: a Central Conflict Theory (Ruiz, 1995:14). The authors writes, "According to him, this theory has turned into a predatory theory, a system of ideas that devours and enslaves any other idea that might restrain its activity" (p. 266). As the author writes, Pink clearly differentiates visual anthropological production from commercial film/video production.
Raoul Ruiz (1995). Poetics of Cinema. NY: Distributed Art Publishers.
Fabian, J (1990). Power and Performance.
Dienderen records her observation of the community film project held by an artist in an immigrant neighborhood in Brussels.
In the author's interview, one of the participants, who acted in the film, said, "I believe it was, I'm sure it was therapy for me, precisely helping me to digest what had happened to me. Just by talking about it, I freed myself. At least I felt relieved from this feeling locked inside me for such a long time" (p. 204).
The author quotes Pink's perspective about visual anthropology in social intervention, "In these projects applying visual anthropology involves promoting self awareness by representing individuals and groups to others and to themselves" (Pink, 2004:8, Visual Anthropology Review. 20(1), 3-16; as cited on p. 253). Pink calls this intervention intersubjectivity between researchers and the local, developed through reflexive process of collaboration and research.
But the artist who directed this project hired professional crew to shoot and edit the film, which seemed to entail incongruity. The author writes this aspect by quoting the concept that Raoul Ruiz used to describe a Western cinema: a Central Conflict Theory (Ruiz, 1995:14). The authors writes, "According to him, this theory has turned into a predatory theory, a system of ideas that devours and enslaves any other idea that might restrain its activity" (p. 266). As the author writes, Pink clearly differentiates visual anthropological production from commercial film/video production.
Raoul Ruiz (1995). Poetics of Cinema. NY: Distributed Art Publishers.
Fabian, J (1990). Power and Performance.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Talking about pictures
: a case for photo elicitation, Harper, Douglas. (2002). Visual Studies, 17.1. 13-26
Harper defines photo elicitation, which was first named by photographer and researcher John Collier in 1957, through a history of its development in anthropology and sociology studies. He explains that benefits from using photos or images in general for interviewing are partly due to the particular quality of photos: capturing the impossible, thus evoking our emotion, and compensating verbal communication.
His methods includes taking photos in a particular way to elicit story-telling from his informants(!). Other forms of image elicitation he explains include reflexive cinema, such as in Chronicle of a Summer directed by Rouch, and 'photofeedback', which was coined by Sampson-Cordle in her dissertation (2002). She let her study subjects (teachers, community members and students) photograph their worlds with inexpensive automatic cameras.
He considers photo elicitation "a postmodern dialogue based on the authority of the
subject rather than the researcher". The aspect of shifting authority of photo elicitation, he asserts, addresses some postmodern ethnography.
Sampson-Cordle, Alice Vera. 2001. “Exploring the relationship between a small rural school in
Northeast Georgia and its community: an imagebased study using participant-produced photographs” (dissertation).
Harper defines photo elicitation, which was first named by photographer and researcher John Collier in 1957, through a history of its development in anthropology and sociology studies. He explains that benefits from using photos or images in general for interviewing are partly due to the particular quality of photos: capturing the impossible, thus evoking our emotion, and compensating verbal communication.
His methods includes taking photos in a particular way to elicit story-telling from his informants(!). Other forms of image elicitation he explains include reflexive cinema, such as in Chronicle of a Summer directed by Rouch, and 'photofeedback', which was coined by Sampson-Cordle in her dissertation (2002). She let her study subjects (teachers, community members and students) photograph their worlds with inexpensive automatic cameras.
He considers photo elicitation "a postmodern dialogue based on the authority of the
subject rather than the researcher". The aspect of shifting authority of photo elicitation, he asserts, addresses some postmodern ethnography.
Sampson-Cordle, Alice Vera. 2001. “Exploring the relationship between a small rural school in
Northeast Georgia and its community: an imagebased study using participant-produced photographs” (dissertation).
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
"I Didn't Leave Y'all on Purpose"
:HIV-Infected Mothers' Videotaped Legacies for Their Children. Donna B. Barnes, Susan Taylor-Brown, and Lori Wiener. (1997). Qualitative Sociology, 20.1. 7-32.
In the advocacy of visually enriched sociology, the authors write:
Chaplin (1994) argues that post-postivist and feminist methodological approaches suggest the desirability of a visually enriched sociology. These methodologies attempt to replace a sociology of a topic with a sociology that emphasizes less distance between researcher and participant, and less distinction between verbal analysis and visual representation as data. Becker (1986) lays out in text and photographs how sociologists can learn to sharpen observational and analytical skills by incorporating photography and methods of inductive reasoning into research. Visual media affords the researcher an extensive opportunity to replay the visual data expanding the analysis by "aiding the human eye for complexities and the memory for unobserved details and observing the fluid and emotionally contexualized reality" (Collier 1967: xii; Beloff 1985; Goffman 1979). Visual data can record the nonverbal content of culture (Collier 1967), and according to Beloff (1985) "drink in the complex of things and happenings" (9).
Their analytical method followed inductive reasoning and systematic comparison of data from the videotapes. In order to do this, they utilized techniques of coding, memo writing and diagrams [how?] and induced a central theme.
The authors write about the advantages of this visual method despite limited interactions between researchers and the mothers: "the method offers the spontaneity and vividness of an uninterrupted stream of information from the individual, as the mother is allowed to talk without researcher intrusion in the form of questions" (p.13).
Through this visual sociology study, they maintain that "We strive to 'produce knowledge that
is 'for women' rather than 'about women' which cast women in the role of active producers of their own lives" (Keller 1985, as cited in Chaplin 1994: 11; as cited on page 13).
In the advocacy of visually enriched sociology, the authors write:
Chaplin (1994) argues that post-postivist and feminist methodological approaches suggest the desirability of a visually enriched sociology. These methodologies attempt to replace a sociology of a topic with a sociology that emphasizes less distance between researcher and participant, and less distinction between verbal analysis and visual representation as data. Becker (1986) lays out in text and photographs how sociologists can learn to sharpen observational and analytical skills by incorporating photography and methods of inductive reasoning into research. Visual media affords the researcher an extensive opportunity to replay the visual data expanding the analysis by "aiding the human eye for complexities and the memory for unobserved details and observing the fluid and emotionally contexualized reality" (Collier 1967: xii; Beloff 1985; Goffman 1979). Visual data can record the nonverbal content of culture (Collier 1967), and according to Beloff (1985) "drink in the complex of things and happenings" (9).
Their analytical method followed inductive reasoning and systematic comparison of data from the videotapes. In order to do this, they utilized techniques of coding, memo writing and diagrams [how?] and induced a central theme.
The authors write about the advantages of this visual method despite limited interactions between researchers and the mothers: "the method offers the spontaneity and vividness of an uninterrupted stream of information from the individual, as the mother is allowed to talk without researcher intrusion in the form of questions" (p.13).
Through this visual sociology study, they maintain that "We strive to 'produce knowledge that
is 'for women' rather than 'about women' which cast women in the role of active producers of their own lives" (Keller 1985, as cited in Chaplin 1994: 11; as cited on page 13).
Monday, May 11, 2009
Picturing the Social Landscape
: Visual Methods and the Sociological Imagination. (2004). By Caroline Knowles & Paul Sweetman (Eds.). New York: Routledge.
Introduction (1-17) (Knowles & Sweetman)
Three key theoretical approaches to visual images within social research are introduced here: 1) in realist paradigm images are regarded as evidence of the reality, as in photo-journalism. 2)From poststructural perspective, images help to construct reality as a part of regime of truth. 3) From semiotics perspective, existing images are texts through which cultural significances or ideologies are uncovered.
Drawing on conceptual and analytic possibilities of visual methods, Knowles and Sweetman write, "Theory or analysis must involve the rearrangement of popular forms of social knowing so that hitherto unknown and non-apparent things become visible. Theory must involve discovery: uncovering what is not readily apparent, connections between one thing and another, the underlying assuptions from which we operate" (p. 7). [By rearrangement, they mean recontexualization that calls for attention of the invisible in a new context.] They attempt to explore visual images' capacity to reveal what is hidden in the inner mechanism of the ordinary and the taken for granted (p. 7).
In explaining the process of revealing the hidden and connecting the personal and particular with the social and general, the authors center on C. Wright Mills's 'sociological imagination', by which he means a mechanism that links the larger historical and social scenes in which lives are set with individual experience and biography (in cited on 7). The authors assert that a set of techniques of visual strategies allow us to understand how the smallest units of social analysis operate in relation to broader social landscapes and bigger process, thus enabling social imagination. By visual techniques, Knowles and Sweetman mean an analytically charged set of methodologies which incline researchers towards the tracing of connections between things of quite different social scope and scale (p. 8). [This reasoning is not clear to explain why visual methods elicit social imagination. In addtion, they heavily rely on a researcher's gaze or capacity in the interpretaion/analysis process of images. If so, how can the research justify the connection that she or he makes between the personal and the social? ]
With regard to the criticism about polysemic nature and highly subjective analysis of pictorial representations, the authors argue that writing, for instance, is also polysemic and in spite of polysemic nature, images present the content, such as smile or laugu, which are usually erased in a writing process.
Jenks (1995) mentions that pictorial representation is, like all forms of representation, about selection, abstraction and transformation (in cited on 13).
Working with Visible Evidence (John Grady, 18-31)
He argues conventional social science training helps image-based research while images may also intrigue insights: "Something in the picture, or something glanced at in passing that could be pictured, will suggest an idea or hint at a link to a theory. It is from such moments that insight is born and from such insights that full-blown interpretive and research strategies can be constructed" (p. 27). [There are many sources that instigate insight. Then are images just one of them or do they have any advantages? The polysemic nature and wholeness of visual representation may elicit more prolific insight or imagination than other forms, such as poem, story, etc. I need to define characteristics of images against other forms of representation.]
My Visual Diary (Elizabeth Chaplin, 36-48)
Among the reasons for keeping a daily photographic diary, Chaplin mentions to look critically, abstractly and actively and to intervene taken-for-granted views. Cultural studies emphasizes that images are polysemic, thus its meaning floats. However, Chaplin points out that photographs, a special kind of images, are in debate in that the 'camera' produces a trace or record what has been photographed. To her, the photographic trace is a record of something which could have been recorded differently and open to many different interpretations. She asserts that the degree of objectivity and subjectivity involved in each photograph varies image to image (p. 47).
Reflecting the Self (Ruth Holliday, 49-64)
It is about the author's reflection on a video-diary project that was conducted with nine 'respondents' to examine the performative nature of queer identities.
Holliday underpins that video-diaries provide respondents with potential for greater reflection and editorial control over the materials disclosed. Observing two styles of the material submitted, she argues that self-conscious appears to be the result of performing in front of a known other while relative candor springs up more when the video is taken by themselves. She furthers the confessional aspect of video diaries on the ground of our relation to media productions: because we are more conditioned as a viewer than a producer, we imagine ourselves as audience for our own productions, thus diarists becomes confessional through a narcissistic identification with an imagined viewer (p. 53). Holliday cites Michael Renov to support her idea. Renov (1996) argues that video is a particulary confessional medium.
"confessional discourse of the diaristic sort addresses itself to an absent imaginary other...In the case of video confessions, the virtual presence 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" (88-89; in cited on 52).
Holliday foregrounds the concept of reflexivity, which has been centered on methodological debates in ethnographic and anthropological studies. Grounded in modernity, reflexivity, she asserts, relies on a stable sense of self and an internal process of self-examination. However, she contends that as in the mirror/camera lens, the self is reflected back from an external location, thus reflexivity should be regarded as external positions, understandings and explanations. Furthermore, she argues that (auto)biography, as a form of reflexive research, may reprivilege 'authorial authority', typically when the research is based on the experience or identity of the researcher, because it constitutes a kind of moral and political high ground from which critical analysis is less important than experience (p. 57).
Opposing the notion that the camera lens reflects the world, she argues it 'refracts' it through the process of selection, eduting and the production of multiple interpretative positions. Through the 'refraction' of the camera lens, she maintains, the centrality of the academic researcher in the production of social realities diminishes.
Imaging the Intangible (Tony Wincup, 79-92)
He asserts that without memory our life consists of momentary experiences with little relation to each other while memory itself is 'slippery and fragile', thereby we tend to keep personal mnemonic objects as a means of sustaining our memory and identity. Wincup suggests that such identity is constructed more circuitously by witnessing others and comparing with our own than by looking inwards at oneself. In this regard, Bourdieu (1984:172, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste) writes, "social identity is defined and asserted through difference" (as cited in Wincup on 82).
Wipcup regards a photograph as a sign, of which the connotations are constructed between the photographer and viewers, thus possession multivocality, and pays particular attention to the role of a photograph that visualizes intangible concepts through tangible elements within its frame. In this matter, he writes, "Through symbolic cultural patterning, tangible objects constitute a significant and lasting medium of intangibl social expression" (p.91).
Telling the story of Linda Lord through Photographs (Ana Maria Mauad and Alicia Rouverol, 178-192)
In this chapter discussed are the significance of a personal story in building historical contexts--as Steven Biel argues, "it is the individual stories, uncovered through oral history, that often challenge our historical generalization" (p. 179)--as well as the intertextual power of a combination of images and text. The authors state that images and texts, taken together, generates a dialogue between the two elements to the extent that they collectively tell a cohesive narrative. Through this intertexuality between text and images, they argue, researchers can gain particular insights and create new understanding of a subject, and write, "It is also the photographs--by revealing multiple stories, contrasts and contradictions, ambiguities and uncertainties--enrich the analysis, deepen and complicate the story we can tell through words" (p.188). To these authors, it is the multiplicity and polyphony of images that widen our knowledge.
Introduction (1-17) (Knowles & Sweetman)
Three key theoretical approaches to visual images within social research are introduced here: 1) in realist paradigm images are regarded as evidence of the reality, as in photo-journalism. 2)From poststructural perspective, images help to construct reality as a part of regime of truth. 3) From semiotics perspective, existing images are texts through which cultural significances or ideologies are uncovered.
Drawing on conceptual and analytic possibilities of visual methods, Knowles and Sweetman write, "Theory or analysis must involve the rearrangement of popular forms of social knowing so that hitherto unknown and non-apparent things become visible. Theory must involve discovery: uncovering what is not readily apparent, connections between one thing and another, the underlying assuptions from which we operate" (p. 7). [By rearrangement, they mean recontexualization that calls for attention of the invisible in a new context.] They attempt to explore visual images' capacity to reveal what is hidden in the inner mechanism of the ordinary and the taken for granted (p. 7).
In explaining the process of revealing the hidden and connecting the personal and particular with the social and general, the authors center on C. Wright Mills's 'sociological imagination', by which he means a mechanism that links the larger historical and social scenes in which lives are set with individual experience and biography (in cited on 7). The authors assert that a set of techniques of visual strategies allow us to understand how the smallest units of social analysis operate in relation to broader social landscapes and bigger process, thus enabling social imagination. By visual techniques, Knowles and Sweetman mean an analytically charged set of methodologies which incline researchers towards the tracing of connections between things of quite different social scope and scale (p. 8). [This reasoning is not clear to explain why visual methods elicit social imagination. In addtion, they heavily rely on a researcher's gaze or capacity in the interpretaion/analysis process of images. If so, how can the research justify the connection that she or he makes between the personal and the social? ]
With regard to the criticism about polysemic nature and highly subjective analysis of pictorial representations, the authors argue that writing, for instance, is also polysemic and in spite of polysemic nature, images present the content, such as smile or laugu, which are usually erased in a writing process.
Jenks (1995) mentions that pictorial representation is, like all forms of representation, about selection, abstraction and transformation (in cited on 13).
Working with Visible Evidence (John Grady, 18-31)
He argues conventional social science training helps image-based research while images may also intrigue insights: "Something in the picture, or something glanced at in passing that could be pictured, will suggest an idea or hint at a link to a theory. It is from such moments that insight is born and from such insights that full-blown interpretive and research strategies can be constructed" (p. 27). [There are many sources that instigate insight. Then are images just one of them or do they have any advantages? The polysemic nature and wholeness of visual representation may elicit more prolific insight or imagination than other forms, such as poem, story, etc. I need to define characteristics of images against other forms of representation.]
My Visual Diary (Elizabeth Chaplin, 36-48)
Among the reasons for keeping a daily photographic diary, Chaplin mentions to look critically, abstractly and actively and to intervene taken-for-granted views. Cultural studies emphasizes that images are polysemic, thus its meaning floats. However, Chaplin points out that photographs, a special kind of images, are in debate in that the 'camera' produces a trace or record what has been photographed. To her, the photographic trace is a record of something which could have been recorded differently and open to many different interpretations. She asserts that the degree of objectivity and subjectivity involved in each photograph varies image to image (p. 47).
Reflecting the Self (Ruth Holliday, 49-64)
It is about the author's reflection on a video-diary project that was conducted with nine 'respondents' to examine the performative nature of queer identities.
Holliday underpins that video-diaries provide respondents with potential for greater reflection and editorial control over the materials disclosed. Observing two styles of the material submitted, she argues that self-conscious appears to be the result of performing in front of a known other while relative candor springs up more when the video is taken by themselves. She furthers the confessional aspect of video diaries on the ground of our relation to media productions: because we are more conditioned as a viewer than a producer, we imagine ourselves as audience for our own productions, thus diarists becomes confessional through a narcissistic identification with an imagined viewer (p. 53). Holliday cites Michael Renov to support her idea. Renov (1996) argues that video is a particulary confessional medium.
"confessional discourse of the diaristic sort addresses itself to an absent imaginary other...In the case of video confessions, the virtual presence 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" (88-89; in cited on 52).
Holliday foregrounds the concept of reflexivity, which has been centered on methodological debates in ethnographic and anthropological studies. Grounded in modernity, reflexivity, she asserts, relies on a stable sense of self and an internal process of self-examination. However, she contends that as in the mirror/camera lens, the self is reflected back from an external location, thus reflexivity should be regarded as external positions, understandings and explanations. Furthermore, she argues that (auto)biography, as a form of reflexive research, may reprivilege 'authorial authority', typically when the research is based on the experience or identity of the researcher, because it constitutes a kind of moral and political high ground from which critical analysis is less important than experience (p. 57).
Opposing the notion that the camera lens reflects the world, she argues it 'refracts' it through the process of selection, eduting and the production of multiple interpretative positions. Through the 'refraction' of the camera lens, she maintains, the centrality of the academic researcher in the production of social realities diminishes.
Imaging the Intangible (Tony Wincup, 79-92)
He asserts that without memory our life consists of momentary experiences with little relation to each other while memory itself is 'slippery and fragile', thereby we tend to keep personal mnemonic objects as a means of sustaining our memory and identity. Wincup suggests that such identity is constructed more circuitously by witnessing others and comparing with our own than by looking inwards at oneself. In this regard, Bourdieu (1984:172, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste) writes, "social identity is defined and asserted through difference" (as cited in Wincup on 82).
Wipcup regards a photograph as a sign, of which the connotations are constructed between the photographer and viewers, thus possession multivocality, and pays particular attention to the role of a photograph that visualizes intangible concepts through tangible elements within its frame. In this matter, he writes, "Through symbolic cultural patterning, tangible objects constitute a significant and lasting medium of intangibl social expression" (p.91).
Telling the story of Linda Lord through Photographs (Ana Maria Mauad and Alicia Rouverol, 178-192)
In this chapter discussed are the significance of a personal story in building historical contexts--as Steven Biel argues, "it is the individual stories, uncovered through oral history, that often challenge our historical generalization" (p. 179)--as well as the intertextual power of a combination of images and text. The authors state that images and texts, taken together, generates a dialogue between the two elements to the extent that they collectively tell a cohesive narrative. Through this intertexuality between text and images, they argue, researchers can gain particular insights and create new understanding of a subject, and write, "It is also the photographs--by revealing multiple stories, contrasts and contradictions, ambiguities and uncertainties--enrich the analysis, deepen and complicate the story we can tell through words" (p.188). To these authors, it is the multiplicity and polyphony of images that widen our knowledge.
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