Visual Research Methods Research Articles

Respecting local knowledge keepers through cellphilms featuring local water bodies: towards decolonizing water management

Abstract This paper outlines arts-based methods aimed at exploring how storytelling with local knowledge keepers (KKs) through cellphilms featuring local waterways might contribute to decolonizing water management by uncovering different values of and relationships with water. We define ‘knowledge keepers’ as people who have an existing relationship with a particular water body and whose knowledge and expertise with respect to the water body emerge from lived experience and not academic scholarship or technical training. We provide insights into and analyse a graduate curriculum enacted in South Africa, where students, through encounters with local KKs and water bodies, made cellphilms presenting their own water narratives and screened these for the public. Cellphilms, as participatory visual methods in research and teaching, are used to explore learning experiences for students and KKs, and the resulting cellphilms become places of knowledge transfer. We outline our theoretical and methodological approaches as they relate to our goals of decolonizing expertise in higher education learning and addressing multiple types of water-related values.

Users' Experiences in a Regional Academic Library Makerspace

ABSTRACT Makerspaces are still emerging service offerings and establishments within libraries and on university campuses. They provide equipment and expertise for hands-on projects and skill-building, especially around digital fabrication. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study of a makerspace in a regional university Library at the University of Southern Queensland. It explores users’ experiences of participation and value across three usage types in the Makerspace: course curriculum, extracurricular, and research. To understand users’ experiences within the space a visual research method was adopted alongside semi-structured interviews. This facilitated a participant-driven dialogue and adding depth to the data collected. A reflexive thematic analysis of interview transcripts was undertaken from which five themes were developed. These were: a tentative start, practical need, skills development, community connection, and influencing outlook. The resulting themes presented a narrative of users’ participation that started with tentative curiosity and hesitancy around using the Makerspace, but ultimately saw participants finding value in new perspectives and skills.

Barter Archive: Reimagining archival alternatives through participatory illustration – A case study of Billingsgate Fish Market (2019–22)

There is an increasingly significant trove of observational sketches being used by illustrators as a visual research method to document and depict community and city interactions. Illustration, for me, serves as a potent, participatory tool of visual research that catalyses such transformative conversations and bolsters relationships within the community fabric. The act of drawing goes beyond rendering an image; it fosters a way to capture, record and create multifaceted interactions between people and their environments. The focus of this article is my community research project, Barter Archive (2019–22), an initiative that employs illustration as a transitional medium, moving from mere record-keeping to constructing a visual repository of collective memory. By inviting community members to participate in the process, ‘Barter Archive’ aims to advance understanding of the intrinsic potential that illustration holds. The project underscores its function as a metaphorical method, one that can substantively shape the collective memory. Moreover, the central argument presented here is that traditional models of archiving our collective memory require innovation, demanding greater inclusivity and accessibility. To this end, the illustration-based ‘Barter Archive’ presents an alternative approach to conventional archival methods. It engages the collective community in a participatory process that ultimately enhances memory-making and preservation practices, making them more accessible across the social spectrum. In conclusion, the importance of evolving and enhancing traditional archiving methods cannot be overstressed, as they play a crucial role in the preservation and inclusivity of collective memory. The ‘Barter Archive’ project, through its unique use of illustration, reinvents the conventional processes attached to archival practices. It provides a platform where community members can actively participate and contribute to collective memory-making, subsequently fostering a better understanding of the power and potential of illustration. Implementing this innovative and transformative approach could revolutionize the archiving landscape, making it more participatory, representative and inclusive, ultimately enriching the collective memory tapestry of communities and cityscapes.

“We Will Never be The Same”: Photovoice Reports From Social Workers of Aged Care During COVID-19

Using photovoice methodology, this study aimed to capture the perspectives of social workers from aged care services on how the pandemic impacted them at a professional level. This study comprised 12 social workers (aged 22–41 years; 11 females) who worked in aged care facilities during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on photovoice methodology, as a participatory visual research method focused on individual and community assets and co-creation of knowledge, participants were asked to take photographs and then share the photos and associated narratives in a group session on the topic “Me as a professional: One year of pandemic”. From the thematic analysis, four themes emerged: personal and professional growth (increased resilience, with new perspectives on life), responding to the pandemic (implementation of immediate actions to prevent the virus propagation), teamwork (union among staff), and eyes on the future (with a sense of uncertainty, yet supported by the good lessons learned). The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on aged care facilities, with social workers becoming frontline professionals in a public health crisis. These professionals faced “forced growth” during the pandemic that has transformed them both professionally and personally.

Screenshotting What’s Important in Video Data: An Experiment in Collaborative, Subjective Analysis of Artifactual, Cultural Research with Children

When using video and visual methods in qualitative and post-qualitative research, the size and scale of the data set can be overwhelming, particularly for new researchers. Collaborative research teams often work with a code book to systematize and unify their analyses. Interpretive researchers pursuing multi-layered and multi-voiced visual analysis often find it difficult to move away from desires for a single ‘best’ interpretation of what happened. This paper illustrates and interrogates an open and flexible method for ‘thinning’ (screenshotting) video data that we call the ‘Five Images Method’. We offer one unfolding of interpretive processes and tensions and examine how four researchers worked across positionalities to analyse video data. We start with our positionalities in relation to a research study of children creating photographic and written stories of cultural artifacts, carried out over one year. The primary data from the study was generated through online video-conference sessions connecting a university researcher with an elementary class. A second level of data was created through a process of screenshotting, followed by recursive cycles of conversation about the choices of each researcher, and how they were guided by background, geography, roles in relation to child participants, technologies, personal experiences, and so on. Two key incidents that illustrate the potential of the method and the interpretations produced are described. We argue that reducing video data in this way can be both generative and limiting, while also serving as a catalyst for enhanced analysis. The collaborations and relationships built in research teams through slow processes of analysis (and writing!) working across difference also promote evocative and layered learning. Looking at interpretations as multiple can be hampered by longstanding histories of research as intended to produce authentic and singular truths.

A New Video Series on Visual Research Methods at INFIDEOS

A New Video Series on Visual Research Methods at INFIDEOS

Cozinhando mudanças: o ato de cozinhar como ferramenta de enfrentamento aos desafios do Antropoceno

Abstract Cooking encompasses cultural, environmental, social, economic, and political dimensions, as well as composes the activities contained in a food system and promoting dialogues and transformations. This study aims to describe and to analyze everyday elements related to cooking and its relationship with the food system based on the experience of a group of female urban farmers in the east side of the city of São Paulo. Body-map storytelling was used, a creative visual research method, in which, by drawing the participant’s body contours, visual and oral data were produced on the meanings of cooking. Seven women participated in this study, who develop actions related to agriculture and cooking. The generated data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Cooking proved to be a connector from the field to the table, strengthening and being strengthened by the practices of urban and peri-urban farming, and is an interesting tool to promote health, contemplating biopsychosocial well-being in line with issues of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Understanding this connection enables to support public policies to promote sustainable food systems and facing the challenges of the Anthropocene.

Современные методы визуальной диагностики реминантного яичника у мелких домашних животных

This article presents the results of visual research methods used to diagnose the «Reminant ovary» in small domestic animals, in order to determine the most effective for making this diagnosis. In cases when, during surgical interventions, such as ovariohistectomy and ovariectomy, the ovary is not correctly removed and a part of it remains in the animal's body, about a year after the surgical operation, a number of specific clinical signs arise indicating the possible presence of a reminant ovary in small pets. The study of each animal began with the collection of anamnesis and general clinical examination. In the presence of clinical signs of the presence of a reminant ovary in the body of a small pet, various combinations of visual diagnostic studies were performed, which included ultrasound of the abdominal cavity, CT of the abdominal cavity, laparoscopic diagnostics and histological examination. As a result of the conducted research, we have identified the most effective methods of visual diagnostics for the diagnosis of a «Reminant ovary», which will help the veterinarian in his practice to quickly and accurately make the correct diagnosis and prescribe timely treatment.

Digital storytelling: A proposed creative therapeutic intervention for bereaved families

Digital storytelling is a qualitative visual research method that is becoming increasingly popular. It is based on collaboratively creating short digital movies conveying participants’ stories which can also be presented to the public, and represents not only a research method but also a beneficial therapeutic tool for both adults and children. Within the context of psychotherapy, digital storytelling has helped individuals to connect not only at an intrapersonal level, but also at an interpersonal level, and has been a valuable part of the healing process. Based on these promising findings, this article presents a proposed creative intervention for bereaved families based on digital storytelling together with a dance-movement activity. The steps are outlined, and the goal of this intervention is to help the bereaved to build resilience, to process their grief and to heal together as a community. The implications for practice are then discussed.

Study of preferential display method of a cultural museum in Bandung, Indonesia

Museums have an important role in preserving the journey of a nation. Museum records prove or evidence of the journey, like culture, language, politics amongst many other things. The success of museums to deliver information and communicate the content to museum visitors and other users rely on a strategic display method. There are many categories of museum objects, each has its story to tell. However, the method to display this fast information has limitations, usually regarding the availability of physical space. Hence, study is needed to help museum designers or administrators determine which method is an optimum solution to deliver the information to the visitor. Therefore, it is the intention of this research to conduct study through survey to museum visitors or users of their preferred basic approach of display methods which are aesthetic, intellectual or thematic. The method used for this research is visual research method. The visitor’s perception about the preferential method of display is extracted using a visual questionnaire followed by a structured interview. The research found that the 3-basic approach of display is vast depending on the categories of the object exhibits. History category is preferred to be displayed in an intellectual display approach, while as fashion, festival, language, music, artefact and influential people/figures categories, they are preferred to be displayed using the aesthetic approach. Thematic display approach is considered effective to present the object of food, dance and architecture category. The result of the research is then developed into proposed display design as a reference for museum designer or administrator to display objects effectively.

ДРЕВНЯЯ МЕБЕЛЬ ВЕЛИКОГО НОВГОРОДА КАК РЕЗУЛЬТАТ РЕАТРИБУЦИИ ПАМЯТНИКОВ XVI—XVII ВВ.

Currently, in the process of researching ancient domestic furniture, a separate component of objects similar in design and decor has been identified. The distinctive features of this furniture are frames of horizontal and vertical tetrahedral pillars connected at right angles, and the space between them is filled with rectangular panels with inscribed carved circles. In museum collections, these artifacts were identified in the XVI—XVII centuries without substantiating the judgment put forward or on the basis of the accepted practice of dating according to the memorial component, which currently cannot be considered exhaustive. It coincided with the dates of the owner's life or the construction of the architectural structure where these objects were found, omitting the previous periods of existence and the circumstances of creation. The complex use of visual research and art history analysis methods, applied for the first time to study these objects, allowed to identify the characteristic features of the constructive and decorative solutions, the degree of preservation and wear, repair and restoration interventions, to consider monuments in the context of the development of Russian and European style art, to justify the possibility of their creation in an earlier period, to find dated analogues from the region architecture, medieval tombstones, the results of archaeological excavations of Veliky Novgorod, furniture art of Europe. The totality of the results obtained made it possible to change the original attribution of monuments and designate it as the work of Novgorod masters of the late XIII — early XV centuries, which is not only a special case in the practice of research, but changes the accepted scientific concept of museum collections and Russian furniture art. The proposed systematic approach proves the fallacy of the thesis about the complete loss of ancient cultural heritage, about the conservatism of Russian art, which preserved pre—Mongolian traditions in the sphere of furniture creation up to the XVI—XVII centuries.

Çocuk ve İlk Gençlik İllüstrasyonunda Korkunun Görünümleri

Bu çalışma, illüstrasyonun bağımsız bir disiplin olarak ortaya çıkışından bu yana en eski uygulama alanlarından birisi olan çocuk ve ilk gençlik kitaplarındaki değişen çehresini “korku” kavramı üzerinden tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır. Korkunun görünümlerini; güncel çocuk ve ilk gençlik kitaplarının yakın zamanlı yayınlarda ve alana ilişkin etkinliklerde karşılaşılan örnekleri üzerinden anlamaya çalışmak, araştırma açısından önem taşımaktadır. Zira illüstrasyonun bilinen sınırların dışına taşarak, çok sayıda farklı üretim yaklaşımında rol alması neredeyse çeyrek yüzyıllık bir sürece dayansa da, korkuyla ilişkisinin izine kendi tarihinin ilk bulgularında dahi rastlanmaktadır. Diğer yandan, farklı gelişme ve gerekçeler eşliğinde gerçekleşen güncel üretim süreçlerinde çehreleri değişse de korkunun görünümleriyle karşılaşmalar sürmekte, hatta sayıca artış gözlenmektedir. Çalışma içerisinde de belirtildiği gibi, korku kavramının görselleştirilmesi, insanlık tarihinin görsel üretim süreciyle kökten bağlı görünmekte, üzerine eklenen dönemler boyunca yaşanan değişimler ve yaklaşımlarla çözülmek bir yana ilişki daha da kompleks bir hale gelmektedir. Bu araştırmanın amacı; ulaşılabilirliği, bilinirliği yüksek yayınevleri ve başlıca etkinlikler kapsamında öne çıkan örnekler üzerinden konuyu nedenleriyle ele almak, bu bağlamda sürecin güncelden yarına nasıl evrilebileceğini sorgulamaktır. Söz konusu süreçte görsel araştırma yöntemlerinin yanı sıra, ilgili örneklerin incelenerek değerlendirilmesine ve ilişkili bulgulardan yararlanılmaya çalışılmıştır. Dolayısıyla, dönemler boyunca iç içe geçen bu başlıkların araştırma kapsamında çeşitli örnekler üzerinden ele alınmasıyla, yalnızca güncel üretim sürecinin anlaşılıp çözümlenmesi değil, durum değerlendirmesinin ötesine geçilerek, sonraki üretim sürecine dair bazı varsayımlarla alana katkı sağlanması beklenmektedir.

Visualizing Mental Health Through the Lens of Pittsburgh Youth: A Collaborative Filmmaking Study During COVID-19.

Youth mental health has been significantly impacted by COVID-19, with concerns of rising anxiety-related and depressive symptoms and reduced quality of life. This study provides a nuanced understanding of mental health stressors and supports in the lives of youth during the pandemic. Using Collaborative Filmmaking, an embodied, visual, and participatory research method, participants in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, were trained to create, analyze, and screen films about mental health. The films elucidated numerous stressors impacting youth mental health, including educational stressors (e.g., academic pressure and relationships with teachers), personal and social stressors (e.g., social and cultural expectations), and current events (e.g., the election and the political system). Supports included individual level supports (e.g., hobbies, self-care, spending time outdoors), and interpersonal level supports (e.g., family and socializing). Several themes were discussed as both stressors and supports, such as family, COVID-19, and social media. Overall, educational stressors are major contributors to adverse mental health symptoms among youth, which have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Youth discussions of the importance of self-care and engaging in healthy hobbies demonstrated strong awareness about maintaining mental health, though structural-level recommendations are still needed to improve youth mental health. Screening the Collaborative Films with the public illuminated several additional opportunities for action, including structural and social actions (e.g., changing policies and social norms around mental health). Given the structural nature of the stressors mentioned by participants, systemic changes as well as policy level action and programming are needed to address the intersectional nature of current mental health concerns among youth.

EMANCIPATORY VISIONS: USING VISUAL METHODS TO CO-CONSTRUCT KNOWLEDGE WITH OLDER ADULTS

Abstract Research is a political activity. Researchers are responsible for theories and methods used to explore, explain, or ignore injustices. A need exists for developing new tools and pathways of knowledge based on experiences, language, and intellect of older adults from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. This presentation argues for the utility of visual methods in critical qualitative research as a medium that allows researchers and participants to co-construct knowledge. Lessons learned about implementing projects using visual methods from the intersectional standpoint of the authors – three younger women of color – will be discussed. Promises and complexities of navigating interpersonal dynamics, decolonizing knowledge-production, and scaling visual methods on multiple levels will be elucidated. Collectively, we argue that visual methods are rigorous for subverting power dynamics rooted in extractive research practices, and provide a vehicle for community-engaged participatory action research that has potential to advance social justice in gerontology.

OLDER ADULT ENGAGEMENT IN COMMUNITY GERONTOLOGY

Abstract Community gerontology integrates scholarship on aging and communities through the lens of mesolevel environments, the diverse continua of settings linking micro and macro contexts of aging. This interdisciplinary symposium brings together research exploring the interconnections of older adults’ engagement across and within the socio-ecological levels of their lived experiences, place-based communities, and policy contexts. Yeh et al.’s paper elucidates the promises of visual methods in critical qualitative research with older adults to subvert power dynamics and advance social justice in gerontology. Latham-Mintus’ paper explores how “weak ties” created by the interaction of social infrastructure within geospatial places and spaces can facilitate longer, healthier lives. Reyes’ paper uses an intersectional life course perspective to explore placemaking as civic participation among Latinx immigrants and African American older adults across time and social environments. Plasencia’s paper focuses on aging in community among diverse older adults using a photovoice to assess their perceptions and needs within the lived urban environment. Pope and colleagues explore how a multi-state sample of older adults perceive their roles in age-friendly initiatives at individual, organizational, and community levels. Taken together, the papers discuss and contextualize the multidirectional ways older adults engage their place-based communities within larger macro sociopolitical structures – an analysis that highlights the embeddedness of mesolevel community environments both within and between micro and macro spheres. This session further speaks to the importance of centering older adults’ experiences in community gerontology by illuminating the ways older adults not only age in community but through layers of community.

리좀적 관점에서 바라본 유아들의 바깥놀이

Objectives This article aims at reviewing the processes of experiences and learning in outdoor plays with a rhizomatic perspective, drawing them through a rhizomatic map, confirming authentic values of outdoor plays and their apsects, and making new suggestions for outdoor plays which have been recognized as superficial values on site.
 Methods For this, participatory observation and visual research methods were applied to 52 five-year-old young children of A Kindergarten in B city. And in order to figure out before and after the plays of the children, who cannot be figured out easily by participatory observation and visual research method, and their close relationships, semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The collected data through participatory observation, visual research method, and interviews were analyzed according to the inclusive analytic procedures based on the Pragmatic Eclecticism suggested by Young-cheon Kim(2016) and the validity was secured through the evidence of the ‘Credibility’ of Lincoln and Guba(1985).
 Results Young children’s outdoor plays starting from an accidental encounter with snails on the way to walk on a rainy day were created through endless connections and contacts. Their plays created by an accidental encounter with snails were categorized into an accidental encounter, recreation by chance, connections and connects, creating meaning, entering into the site of learning, dislocating and learning together, and thinking newly and without limit. Young children exist as nomads who reject territorialization, pursue new arrangements and desires which are different from the present time and try deterritorialization. Therefore, young children’s outdoor plays have neither start nor end and show non-linear and rhizomatic characteristics like roots digging into and stretching out underground endlessly.
 Conclusions Young children’s outdoor plays with the rhizomatic characteristics could not be understood with a tree-type perspective concluded with a center and they require teachers and adults to change their perspectives to the rhizomatic one which is not fixed but changing. And young children can meet the world, think and create learning as actors in plays when they have possibilities of changes and dislocation in play venue, time, play methods, etc.

관광자의 기억에 남는 관광경험(MTE) 공유개념도 분석

In an increasingly competitive tourism market, creating long-lasting tourism experiences is critical. In this study, we use Zaltman's Metaphor Extraction Technique (ZMET), one of the visual qualitative research methods, to discover the essence of tourist experiences that tourists have long remembered and to find the universal thought structure shared by tourist groups as a shared conceptual diagram. ZMET believes that most human communication is nonverbal, and that figurative thinking is primarily expressed through images rather than language. In this study, ZMET, an effective methodology for identifying and surfacing invisible empirical thoughts, emotions, thoughts, and motives, was used to analyze the relationship between the constituent concepts and sub-components based on the memorable tourism experience and to determine the common value and final purpose of tourists. As a result, the concept commonly recognized by the tourist group was 1) Self examination and Self-finding 2) Novelty and Heterogeneity 3) Interaction with locals 4) Interaction with companion 5) Natural scenery 6) Serendipity 7) Locality 8) Escape from daily life 9) Healing 10) New knowledge and learning. Based on the findings of this study, it is important to broaden the academic base of the tourism field by developing a shared concept map shared by tourists and using it as basic data for marketing strategies and efficient decision-making, such as the planning and development of tourism contents and products.

VISUAL RESEARCH METHODS IN THE STUDY OF TRADITION: THE CASE OF THE LATVIAN SONG AND DANCE CELEBRATION

Most researchers, focusing on the study of tradition, admit that the term tradition has several meanings that are open to different interpretations. Sociology, anthropology, and ethnology apply different approaches to the study of tradition; yet it has been often researched also interdisciplinary, using various theoretical and empirical tools. The choice of the empirical methods was largely determined by the theoretical approaches to the concept of tradition, especially ethnologist Simon J. Bronner’s premise that all the explanations of tradition perceive it as a subjective phenomenon that does not easily yield to reflection and usually manifests itself as an intrinsic and intangible part of everyday life. The specific nature of tradition has encouraged the development of methods suitable to the analysis of symbolic practices which are difficult to read. The above considerations prompt to test the applicability of visual research methods hitherto seldom used in the study of tradition, choosing as the case study the everyday practices of the Song and Dance Celebration movement. The objective of the current research is to establish whether and in what ways the application of visual research methods to the study of tradition advances the understanding of tradition using as the example of tradition the arts groups’ everyday practices during the Song and Dance Celebration interim in Latvia. We pose two central research questions: 1) what everyday practices are typical of the arts groups during the Song and Dance Celebration interim; 2) which aspects of tradition can be explored through visual research methods. The data lead to the conclusion that photo-elicitation is the best visual approach for encouraging reflection on the everyday practices and their motivation. It can be used as the only research method, while the visual data acquired by the researcher need supplementary methods, such as the in-depth interview. Visual data reveal the variety of everyday practices and assist in describing the aspects that are difficult to formulate, e. g., to illustrate emotions and feelings. It is concluded that visual research methods lead to novel and original results, reveal additional everyday practices upholding tradition and open new possibilities for interpreting their significance and symbolism.

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY ISSUES IN WORKS OF GERMAN STREET ART

This article deals with the development of environmental and ecological issues in Germany since the 1970s, and how these issues are represented in works of street art since the beginning of the development of modern graffiti, and later street art, in Germany. The purpose of this research is to identify differences in the ecological and environmental issues in works of graffiti and street art from the 1970s to present day in Germany. This has been done by examining general themes of environmental and ecological issues in graffiti and street art and by studying some of the specific examples of artwork, using research methods by visual analysis based on study “Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design” by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, and visual analysis of iconography and iconology, described by Marion G. Müller in “The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods” by Eric Margolis and Luc Pauwels. The first phase of the research involves an overview of the socio- political background of the ecological and environmental issues in Germany since the 1970s, as well as development of modern graffiti and street art in Germany in the context of ecology and environment, using the method of iconology. The second phase involves examining physical examples of graffiti and street art in Germany. The final phase deals with regional differences reflected in artists’ work in Germany. This article will provide general insights in graffiti and street art in Germany and it will explore how German artists tackle the environmental and ecological issues in their works.

Editorial: Introduction to the special issue, innovative approaches to visual methods in mixed method research in psychological fields

The use of integrative visual displays to advance analysis is a rapidly evolving topic of inquiry in mixed methods research. This editorial serves dual purposes. The first is to introduce articles appearing in a special issue about visual methods in Methods in Psychology . The second is to introduce two cutting edge examples of the use of dynamic visual displays as a mixed analytical strategy. The article concludes with an argument that a separate set of guidelines are needed for using visual displays for purposes of analysis from those generated for purposes of reporting.