Putting the ‘i’ in icon: An autophotographic study of iconicity

Abstract

AbstractThis article addresses the potential of autophotography to generate new insights into the meanings of iconic sites. It draws on photographic and interview data collected as part of a broader study exploring the everyday urban sense‐making of university students in Liverpool, UK. Iconic sites featured prominently in participants' images of meaningful city spaces as well as the spoken accounts in the photo‐elicitation interviews. Visual depictions of urban iconicity are central to place marketing strategies attempting to attract visitors and investment. Yet on a local level, these icons and images have been criticised for alienating local populations and foregrounding lifestyles and cultures that are inaccessible to many urban residents. While we need to study icons critically, this article argues that we should not think of them reductively. The data generated here challenges understandings of icons as predominantly representational and establishes iconic sites as lived spaces that form part of everyday practices. Iconic structures are constitutive of ‘geographies of memory’ that are central to the development of a sense of place for university students. The autophotography method revealed that icons become symbols of elective belonging via which students highlight their connection to their university city beyond the more generic student infrastructure.