Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Concern with visible evidence has been a part of sociology since the beginning with mostly still photographs, maps, and charts being deployed for various illustrative and emotive purposes. Rarely, however, did authors concern themselves with what made these images useful as data. Thus, while many social scientists acknowledged that visuals could make an argument clearer and more memorable, few considered how they might make an argument sounder. Only in the last three decades have researchers interested in a more visual sociology or anthropology responded to this challenge. Visual methods refer to any research or analytic technique that produces or interprets visually perceptible representations as data in a social scientific argument. Still photographs constitute the most commonly utilized form of imagery, but increasingly visual methods include film, video, and non-figurative ways of displaying data for various analytic purposes. Concern with developing protocols for research with visual materials first emerged in cultural anthropology where photography and film were used to document (if not salvage) the material culture, rituals, and other aspects of life in tribal societies. Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead's ethnographic collaboration in Bali represents the first use of visual data that was methodologically rigorous and influenced by formal theory. Their work, however, did ... log in or subscribe to read full text