View Conference Program
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
International Visual Sociology Association 2010 International Conference 20-22 july 2010 Bologna, Italy Session Program TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 A Methodological issues I: Theory, intersubjectivity, efficiency and credibility 4 2 A Urban changes: the new city from downtown to suburbs 6 3 A Doing work 7 4 A How people look 9 5 ROUND TABLE. Open Discussion: The ethics of looking and seeing: methodologies for researching and teaching with images 10 6 The contribution of visual techniques in the analysis of ethno-territorial conflicts 11 1 B Methodological Issues II: When art meets (social) science 14 2 B Urban changes: the new city from downtown to suburbs 16 3 B Doing work 17 4 B How people look at...? 19 7 Street art and urban visual landscapes 20 8 Visual narratives of the city: Urban imaginary, identity and spectacle 22 9 Art and affect in audiovisual practice 25 10 Representations in visual research: Content in context – reflexivity in question 26 11 The visual construction of human suffering 28 12 Healthscapes: images of health and wellness 32 1 C Methodological Issues III: Using Photographs and video for social research 35 13A Domesticating the city: Visual methods and practical consciousness of space 36 14 Military images: Production, presentation and consumption 38 15 Sociology of the visual: Researching the uses of visual texts and technologically- enhanced modes of vision 40 16 Methodology: Visual examination of school design and planning 41 17 User generated visual: SNS and online worlds. Visual research methods 43 1 D Methodological Issues IV: Discussing participatory practices 46 13B Domesticating the city: Visual methods and practical consciousness of space 48 18 From the darkroom to the kitchen table: practices and places of visual media production 49 19 Ethnografic film in sociological research and teaching at the university: scientific and organizational challenges 51 20 Fieldwork: Photography, architecture and built environments 53 21 Visual research 2.0 56 22 Visual sociology of religion 58 23 Window shopping seeking for identity within the consumption sphere 60 24 Integrating fieldwork methodologies using the Net and its tools 62 25 A A visual educational research 65 2 IVSA 2010 Conference Program (rev. 14July2010) 26 Visual research and digital representation 66 27 An objective gaze? Journalism, photographs and representation 68 28 Cultural heritage and image production. Cultural histories of photography and film. 70 29 Reading material culture 72 30 Visual mobile mediascape 73 25 B Visual educational research 75 31 Visual ethnography and the visualization of ethnic identity 76 32 The indecisive moment: photography in the age of banality 79 3 IVSA 2010 Conference Program (rev. 14July2010) 1 A Methodological issues I: Theory, intersubjectivity, efficiency and credibility Coord: Luc Pauwels University of Antwerp Carolina Cambre University of Alberta How does an image image? Faces of Che Guevara In writing a dissertation about the famous image of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara derived from the 1960 photograph by Alberto Korda, I encountered numerous dilemmas and opportunities in the collection/production and organization of images. At what point is this face no longer recognizable? Can someone waving a Che flag on the street be said to be carrying the same image as someone carrying a Che adorned backpack? When is Che no longer Che? In this multimedia presentation, I discuss the typological issues around researching with an image as the object and dealing with a collection of over 300 images. Also, starting from, though not restricted to, Georges Didi-Huberman’s Visible, Visual, Virtual triadic framework, I explore ways to conceptualize what images do and say. Although I begin with empirical examples, my paper is an effort to push boundaries in image theory. Visual anthropologist Jean Rouch called for the opening of imagination and dreams into the world of academic work. In response, I take the broader example of public art as a cultural practice that can help us open toward these other possibilities of conceptualizing and communicating visual experience. Is there a way to understand the multiple and varied renderings of Che Guevara’s face as events in their own right? Agnese Vardanega University of Teramo The Web 2.0: opportunities and challenges for improving the intersubjectivity of control in visual research One of the most discussed methodological issues in visual research is related to the intersubjectivity of control over the interpretation process. Since it is very difficult and/or expensive to publish photos and videos within academic publications, “raw materials” are generally not accessible to other readers and researchers. This is the main reason why - for a working paper series within the Department - we have decided to use the Internet to integrate standard paper publications (http://www.territorisociologici.info). But, in general terms, “open” access to visual materials may give answers to several methodological problems: intersubjectivity, as well as the effective implementation of collaborative and/or participative visual research. From this perspective, the Internet has proven to be a resource of paramount importance, allowing researchers to publish and share photographs and videos, and becoming at the same time an extraordinary source of free visual materials - produced by professionals, researchers and “common” users - that may be used to study many aspects of our cultural environment and/or everyday life. Furthermore, the Web 2.0 has enriched the opportunities of improving collaborative and participative research, as the new social tools - such as research blogs (and edublogs) - go along perfectly with the processual character of interpretation. As a consequence, visual materials are probably destined to be used in different and innovative ways, even within new fields of research. Some examples will be presented - among which our experience with the working paper series “Territori Sociologici “- in order to highlight the role of the Web both in solving some empirical issues, and in raising new methodological and ethical problems. Giuseppe Losacco University of Bologna The use of images in photo elicitation methodology: efficacy and efficiency of the tool I would like to present a methodological path followed in a research realized two years ago regarding the multiple dimension of identity of young Italians. The topic of the research was to 4 IVSA 2010 Conference Program (rev. 14July2010) analyze the processes and the paths of teenagers’ individual and collective identity construction provided by the visual dimension of globalization, through mass communication as well as migrations and international flows of goods and fashions. The research has been developed using the photo elicitation methodology applied to 100 young Italians. One part of the research has been given to try to answer an important question: was all the images used for the research efficient? In other words, considering the methodology used, do we can calculate not only the efficacy but also the efficiency of the images used? The question was linked to the idea that even if the images stimulates a dialogue between the interviewer and the interviewed not always this dialogue is “in- topic” respect the aim of the research. In few words, what we did has been to elaborate the interviews resulted from the images - with the help of the software NVivo7 - in order to calculate the efficiency of the tool. In this way we discovered how some images produced an huge communication but with few consistency (respect the topic of the research), while, differently , others images, produced less words, but more significant. This result has been possible thank to a series of passages created in order to understand what images was really useful for the research and what not. This analysis has made at the end of the research, but has been a way to discover a method for the measurement of the efficiency of the images used for the photo elicitation approach that could be used as pre-test of the tool for any kind of research that will use this visual methodology. In few words, following three passages, we can test and measure the efficiency of the images we will use in our research. Michal Šimůnek Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Redrawing the Boundaries of Science? The Case of Credible Photographic Data in Visual Social Sciences William Mitchell ascribed to the new academic formations of visual studies and visual social sciences the role of the dangerous supplement to the traditional and established scientific disciplines. Using this Derrida's concept he referred mainly to two things: first, that visual sciences "indicate an incompleteness in the internal coherence" of traditional disciplines and second, that they "open both disciplines to outside issues that threaten their boundaries". Although I agree with Mitchell's argumentation, I would like to push his analysis of inter-discilplinary disputes in a little bit different direction. In my argumentation I thus would like to aim attention at one of the most fascinating issues handled by sociology of scientific knowledge, that is, how scientists defend their intellectual territory, legitimize their endeavor and demarcate the boundaries between science and non-science. To establish and maintain boundaries between science and non- science is very complex and historically relative process and I will aim just on the particular aspect of this issue. Considering the borders of visual social sciences I