Situating visual stories using photo elicitation and biographical narrative methods

Abstract

The chapter discusses the methodological and analytical potential of linking photo elicitation and biographical narrative methods, by making reference to the insights that they offered in the subjects presenting a visual story. Understanding the visual story involves the researcher interpreting the visual story in the context of knowledge about the lived life and the told story. Why does someone who lived their life like this and tell their story like that select these images to characterise aspects of their experience of personal life? This chapter discusses a study of family life with ten South African women that relied on biographical life history interviews and photo-elicitation methods. Attention was paid both to what was represented in the image and to what was not there, and comparisons across cases were made. The chapter demonstrates how the links between the facts about the person’s life, the relationship narration in the interview and their representation in the photos emphasise family tensions in the narrative construction of personal relationships. If the telling of life is a selective endeavour, inviting respondents to make their own agenda in the visual representation of their family life serves as a useful method in resisting the imposition of researchers’ views on their biography.