Visual Sociology Research Articles

A Personal Reflection on White Ethnic Sociology

Research Article| October 01 2017 A Personal Reflection on White Ethnic Sociology Jerome Krase Jerome Krase Jerome Krase, emeritus and Murray Koppelman Professor at Brooklyn College CUNY, is an activist-scholar regarding intergroup relations and other urban community issues. He researches and photographs about urban life and culture globally. His books include Self and Community in the City (1982); Ethnicity and Machine Politics, with Charles LaCerra (1992); Ethnic Landscapes in an Urban World, with Ray Hutchison (2006); and Seeing Cities Change: Local Culture and Class (2012). He coedits Urbanities and is active in the American, European, and International Sociological Associations; the Commission on Urban Anthropology; H-NET Humanities on Line; and the International Visual Sociology Association. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Polish American Studies (2017) 74 (2): 23–27. https://doi.org/10.5406/poliamerstud.74.2.0023 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Jerome Krase; A Personal Reflection on White Ethnic Sociology. Polish American Studies 1 January 2017; 74 (2): 23–27. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/poliamerstud.74.2.0023 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressPolish American Studies Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2017 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Forum You do not currently have access to this content.

Narrating and explaining urban stories through inherited visual urban vocabulary

This article proposes and formulates the visual urban vocabulary for tacit, intuitive, experiential, but none-the-less fast, plausible, generative, informative, sketch-like composition and visualization of urban stories. Through visual and socially ‘inherited’ clues, the authors explain the complexities of urban spaces, their elements, interrelations and cause–effect phenomena to expert and non-expert public alike. The rules, syntax and overall advantages of such a vocabulary are grounded in the existing linguistic, cognitive, psychological theories, visual sociology and theories of urban design, combined and supported by the authors’ own research into visualizations and tools for evaluating, understanding and presenting urban spaces. With many illustrations, the article demonstrates the use for – and the use of – generic urban stories in discussions about urbanity, urban environments, livable places, etc. and positions them into educational, research and participatory planning and commercial contexts.

La Visitation: Inequality and the Social Fabric of Marseille

Unlike many other major metropolitan centers in France, Marseille has not suffered high rates of collective violence and rioting in its public housing estates ( cités). Yet it is also true that the cités of Marseille are as feared and stigmatized as any in France. This article explores research on the city’s housing estates and presents original ethnographic work that helps to explain Marseille’s exceptionalism. I find that local efforts at community education by active residents of La Visitation, a typical mid-sized Marseille cité, enhance social cohesion and neighborhood pride, despite persistent problems of underemployment among its young residents. I also describe a successful effort to use a produced video (an application of visual sociology) to draw attention to and support for residents’ local initiatives.

From State Terrorism to Petty Harassment: A Multi-Method Approach to Understanding Repression of Irish Republicans

Beginning in 1969, the Provisional Irish Republican Army conducted a paramilitary campaign designed to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, creating a 32 county democratic socialist republic. The Provisional IRA’s campaign officially ended in 2005, but former Provisionals and others who followed them continue to pursue armed struggle to this day. The Provisional IRA and its successors are part of the centuries old and highly documented “resistance” of Irish people to British interference in Ireland. Over those centuries, state authorities ‒ the British, Irish, and Northern Irish governments ‒ have “resisted” the dissent of Irish Republicans. This paper draws on three different research methodologies available to social scientists ‒ counts of events that inform quantitative analyses, intensive interviews/oral histories, and visual sociology ‒ and argues that a multi-method approach will provide a better understanding of the dynamics of “resistance” in Ireland and, more generally, social protest.

CCTV oddity: archaeology and aesthetics of video surveillance

The paper narrates #OCTV – an art installation, performance and hacktivist project – the authors presented at the International Visual Sociology Association annual conference (Goldsmiths 2013). The installation used networked CCTV cameras and affordance of digital media to make surveillance space visible, beyond its representational value. It played with the co-constitution of the surveillance images through technologies, cultural practices, and ethics. The paper suggests the visual work of CCTV cameras is contextual to the specific configuration surveillance ecology takes. It proposes art projects as critical methodology for unpacking the social construction of the digital image. As a consequence, it recognises the challenges of using once-upon-a-time ethics forms with regards to ecologies of the visual. Instead, it suggests an ethical and political tension which should follow research ‘data’ during the lifetime of the project, and possibly in the ecologies yet to come.

A History of the Syrian Community of Grand Rapids, 1890–1945

Book Review| April 01 2017 A History of the Syrian Community of Grand Rapids, 1890–1945 A History of the Syrian Community of Grand Rapids, 1890–1945. By James F. Goode. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2015. 161 pp. Illustrations, select bibliography, and index. $40 (paper). Steven J. Gold Steven J. Gold Michigan State University Steven J. Gold is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His interests include international migration, ethnic economies, ethnic community development, qualitative field methods, and visual sociology. Gold is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of seven books. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2017) 36 (3): 82–84. https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.36.3.0082 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Steven J. Gold; A History of the Syrian Community of Grand Rapids, 1890–1945. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2017; 36 (3): 82–84. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.36.3.0082 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of American Ethnic History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2017 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

Caught on camera, posted online: mediated moralities, visual politics and the case of urban ‘drought-shaming’

The ‘shaming’ of subjects caught on camera, engaging in socially transgressive acts of varying kinds, has become a familiar occurrence and locus of ambivalent possibility in contemporary public culture. In this article, I theorise the socio-moral complexities and visual politics of ostensibly civic forms of online shaming through an in-depth analysis of a single case: urban ‘drought-shaming’ in California (2014–2015). Drawing on interpretive methods of social analysis and anchored by the classical sociological tradition, I highlight the role of images, especially the circulation of still photographs taken and posted by ordinary members, in the emerging problematisation of excessive water use at the centre of this case. Understood as a vital and diminishing resource within an interconnected and interdependent social order, water was made sacred; it was prohibited from being handled in mundane or carelessly reckless ways during the drought. A state-of-emergency came to be constituted (also) as a moral drama. The language and practices constitutive of drought-shaming, I argue, contributed to a popular sociological imagination of water use whose critical dimensions transcend the specificities of this case. To highlight its ritual structure within the context of a viable and organically solidaristic collective order, I compare online civic shaming with the ‘status degradation ceremony’, as theorised by Harold Garfinkel in the 1950s. Comparable in that it constitutes a new form of public denunciation with socially integrative and renewing possibilities, there are also differences that shed light onto some of the new and defining elements of public shaming in a digitally convergent, visually mediated, and (more) participatory media-sphere. Finally, revealing significant overlap and collaboration between social, news, and tabloid media in the social production of mediated shaming today, this study is located at the border of visual sociology and a critical sociology of visual representation in contemporary mediated society.

"PHOTOTELLING" AS THE INNOVATION OF PHOTOJOURNAL "6 MOIS" BY CONNECTING PRESS AND BOOK MARKETS

he author analyses the French journal «6 MOIS», which was created in Paris in 2011, from the point of view of visual sociology. The notions of documentary photography (350 pages of journalistic photography) that represent social life in the 21st century are investigated. The goal of this article is to demonstrate that the journal is a unique and significant source for social science. The research connects the views of the editorial team with photographers from around the world by analysing and comparing interviews conducted in collaboration with the editorial team and photographers from China, The Netherlands, France, Russia. The interviews reveal the main criteria relevant in selecting documentary photographic material: the “concept-story”; their journalistic nature; visual quality; and the actuality of the topic. By analysing journal publications this author has discovered the way social problems in documentary photography are demonstrated: using age; gender; emotions of heroes; the location of story; and the main social issues. To answer the question of how the popular documentary journal «6 MOIS» constructs the image of the contemporary, the content analysis of photographs and the journal’s interviews and are presented and discussed.

Seeing Religion: Toward a Visual Sociology of Religion, edited by ROMAN R. WILLIAMS

Seeing Religion: Toward a Visual Sociology of Religion, edited by ROMAN R. WILLIAMS

Language Tourism through the Prism of Visual Data – Seeing the Summer Language Courses through Pictures

Purpose. The objective of the research was to outline the character of tourism language based on an analysis of visual data. Method. Analysis of the photographs as preexisting data, visual sociology. For many years, the author of the present paper actively participated in the organization of international language courses and remained, through social media, in touch with hundreds of fellow participants from all over the world. Thanks to the applications (e.g. “my friends” on Facebook), she had access to many private photos taken during the language courses (in case of images used in the article, the individual’s approval for their publication was obtained). Findings. The analyzed visual data highlight the mixed character of the linguistically-oriented travels, prioritizing the entertainment and the immersion in an international and multicultural environment, and somehow shifting the purely educational aspect into the background. As a matter of fact, language tourism appears to be far more than just language learning – it is rather a multi-layered touristic, educational and cultural experience that can appeal to many (mostly young and active) people, not only those interested in language acquisition. Research and conclusions limitations. It was possible to access and analyze only the visual data that were free, public and available for inspection (retrieved from language tourists’ unblocked profiles on social networking sites). Some data was of commercial nature (websites of tour operators). It should be also stressed that the nature of tourism language can only be described using a triangulation of data and research methods, and not limiting the study to only one technique (analysis of visual data). Practical implications. The findings of the research may be an important voice in the debate on the more accurate evaluation of the benefits resulting from the participation in international language courses, presenting linguistic tourism not only as long hours of language learning, but as a touristic, educational and cultural experience contributing to personal growth. Originality. Thanks to the used methodology, it was possible to get information difficult to obtain during an interview or on basis of the analysis of written text. Type of paper. This is an original article presenting the findings of an analysis of visual data.

Reflexiones conceptuales y metodológicas sobre análisis y producción audiovisual en Sociología

The audio-visual has deserved few attention in social research, even in fields of knowledge specially iconized where social representations are constructed fundamentally from the visual speeches transmitted in the mediapolis. The image has been generally used in sociology to illustrate texts and not so much as document to analyze and interpret. It is necessary to integrate the audio-visual documents as primary sources of research, since without them it is impossible to analyze and understand numerous phenomena of the contemporary society. This analytical-comprehensive potential of the audio-visual sources derives from its discursive nature and the mechanisms of production of sense that they incorporate. In this article we think over some aspects of the analysis and the audio-visual production as a conceptual and methodological tool of sociology: the use of visual sources in research; the multidisciplinary implications of the analysis of the visual speech to establish how the meaning is constructed (how a social fact is visualized and how other forms can be constructed of visuality); or the audio-visual image in the construction of the otherness. But the audio-visual, besides being a source and analytical tool in the sociological task, also constitutes an important tool of social intervention in our field. In this respect, the audio-visual production is probably the newer aspect we can incorporate in our sociological work. Visual sociology has almost always approached problems associated with power in which we can now consider to control ourselves constructing other forms of visuality from the actors-subjects who are in situation of underotherness. The audio-visual sociological production can be constructed as a specific alternative space of social intervention that helps transform the reality incorporating the empathic perspective and the vision of the implied actors themselves, normally absent in the speeches established from the power. This construction of a new alternative speech from the perspective of the actor, allows the strengthening and improvement of his autoimage, in a process of identity reconstruction that makes him see himself as a real social actor with capacity of action, intervention and certain exercise of power. These have been the results of our experiences in the research group GIEMIC at Castilla-La Mancha University.

The Coverage of Saudi Arabia in the “Introduction to Sociology” U.S. Textbooks between 2001 and 2015

AbstractThis article discusses the coverage of Saudi Arabia in “introduction to sociology” textbooks in the context of two variables — the September 11, 2001 attack, and globalization. The study covers 24 major textbooks, all published between 2001 and 2015. The textbooks were chosen with the help and consultation of many colleagues in numerous sociology departments throughout various parts of the United States. Also, the publishers of sociology textbooks were consulted throughout the process of selection. The method of investigation was content analysis which relied heavily upon studying the content of the text. The findings were organized in the following subsections: Islam; the Wahhabi version of Islam; Politics; September 11th and Bin Laden; Women in Saudi Arabia; Human Rights and Civil Rights Abuses; Social Media; Miscellaneous Positive or neutral comments on Saudi Arabia; Visual Sociology; and closing remarks. The finding of the article is more or less negative, as textbooks rarely mentioned positive things about Saudi Arabia.

Social inclusion in the regeneration processes of historic centr

This paper deals with the theme of city users’ participation in the urban renewal processes. Although not a new approach, in the last years it has been considered as the best way to reach meaningful results in the planning of urban design strategies that take into account the citizens’ needs and desires. The paper focuses only on one part of a complex European Research Project carried out in the period 2011-2013 within the cooperation programme between Italy and Malta. During the research development we decided to do a specific activity related to urban knowledge and based on the cooperation between a sociologist and an architect. The historic centre of Siracusa was the case study and visual sociology was the methodological approach adopted. This is a way to connect the perception of the urban space to the process of identifying urban features. A focus group was formed and each of its members was asked to describe a part of Ortigia by doing a photoshoot; ten photos describing the city and answering two simple questions a) What part of your city would you like to show to one of your friends who has never visited it? b) What part of your city wouldn’t you like one of your friends to see? We classified the collected photos and then we organized a public discussion to evaluate the relationship between visual perception and oral description. In this way, we activated interactions between sensitive knowledge and logical considerations. Perception and representation were defined through relationships me/other oriented and city/tourists oriented for the purpose of constructing a conception of identity of the city. I will describe, step by step, the complex process that has led to the elaboration of a model of the social representation of the Urban Identity.

Teamwork in Business Education. The Perspective of Polish Students of Management Studies

The development of soft competences among students is one of the basic challenges that are faced by the process of education in higher education system in Poland. It is a result of postulates of the business world regarding competences of university graduates, which are also the subject of numerous sociological studies. The article presents the analysis of opinions of students of management studies about teamwork during classes. For this purpose the visual sociology method was applied (the use of memes) which was supplemented with a statistical analysis of the indications of respondents based on a five-point Likert scale. The results of the research make it possible to state that respondents manifest an unequivocal attitude towards teamwork within the scope of issues presented by the memes, however, their greatest percentage (36%) agreed with their negative content.

Reframing visual social science: towards a more visual sociology and anthropology

Part I. Remodelling Visual Social Science: 1. Prologue and outline: (re)framing visual social science? 2. An integrated framework for conducting and assessing visual social research Part II. The Visual Researcher as Collector and Interpreter: 3. Researching 'found' or 'pre-existing' visual materials 4. A visual and multimodal model for analyzing online environments Part III. The Visual Researcher as Producer, Facilitator and Communicator: 5. The mimetic mode: from exploratory to systematic visual data production 6. Visual elicitation techniques, respondent-generated image production and 'participatory' visual activism 7. The 'visual essay' as a scholarly format: art meets (social) science? 8. Social scientific filmmaking and multimedia production: key features and debates Part IV. Applications/Case Studies: 9. Family photography as a social practice: from the analogue to the digital networked world 10. A visual study of corporate culture: the workplace as metaphor 11. Health communication in South Africa: a visual study of posters, billboards and grassroots media Part V. Visual Research in a Wider Perspective: 12. Ethics of visual research in the offline and online world 13. A meta-disciplinary framework for producing and assessing visual representations 14. Advancing visual research: pending issues and future directions.

Reflections on business tourism in the context of the monograph study “Science tourism from a visual sociology perspective”

Reflections on business tourism in the context of the monograph study “Science tourism from a visual sociology perspective”

Sharing Images, Spoiling Meanings? Class, Gender, and Ethics in Visual Research with Girls

Our paper considers the ethical challenges engendered by participatory visual research with girls. Drawing on photographs taken by and of girls we consider how to reconcile the challenges generated by disseminating images of girls whilst supporting them to have a voice in research. Our concerns are focused on how to maintain the integrity of girls’ visual voices while protecting them from any harm that may emerge from revealing visual information about them. This issue has become increasingly germane for visual sociology as developments in digital technology and visual culture mean that images can circulate instantaneously and for time immemorial, potentially stripping them of their creators’ intentions and infusing them with new and unintended meanings. The paper considers different approaches to resolving our ongoing ethical dilemma and examines their potential for honoring the flesh and blood girl’s right to be heard amidst concerns about her digital visibility.

Guardare Venezia: la città come dispositivo visuale

The hypothesis of this paper is that Venice has been and still is an extraordinary example of visual representations’ production and consumption. The identity of the city, as represented by tourist images, is the result of a long cultural process that has taken place since the Renaissance and continues to exert its effects even today.The author uses visual sociology to analyze both a corpus of mass media images (photographs on websites, postcards, brochures, stock photography) and a visual documentation of the practices of tourists visiting Venice. Following this methodology, the article describes how pictures of the city have become one of the key drivers of mass tourism there, which is considered unsustainable by a portion of the resident community.The first part of this approach (analysis of the images) concerns the urban icons, those that become standard generative models for other visual representations. Some pictures are used to describe the genesis of the icons as well as their reproduction, distribution, and remediation throughout time.The second part of the methodology (analysis with the images) concerns some documentation (photographs and videos) observing the performances of tourists in Venice. Mass tourism is described by its social practices of looking, gazing, photographing, and acquiring images. The focus is on the cycle of the production and consumption of cultural capital and icons through visual practices.The article uses a selection of photographs as an integral part of research. Photographs, postcards, and artwork that have influenced the process of creating Venetian icons help in the investigation of the tourists’ relationships with the urban space and its residents, and they also help to explain the visual identity of the Serenissima in our collective imagination.

Signs of Visual Resistance in Palestine: Unsettling the Settler-Colonial Matrix

This article contrasts historical and contemporary discourses and visualizations of the notions of Homeland, the Other and the Self that have been applied in the Zionist/Israeli project to colonize Palestine and displace its indigenous inhabitants. It actively connects theories of visual sociology and cultural studies (postmodern critical theory) with (1) various Israeli and Palestinian political discourses of Belonging (nationhood) while also (2) providing the reader with clear-cut, material examples of both exclusivist Zionist technologies of power and subaltern Palestinian techniques of counter-discourse, ultimately retracing historical continuity and unveiling resonant dialectics of modern nationalist doctrine across the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries throughout both Europe and the Middle East. Critically tracing and decoding the altering semiotic identity of a set of politicized posters highlights the key importance and the ongoing use of abstract power (discourse) within Israeli strategies of occupation and siege while simultaneously disclosing innovative Palestinian forms of visual resistance that advocate ‘existence’ in an asymmetric configuration of ‘conflict’. In order to interpret the selected visuals fully, one needs foremost to be acquainted with the interwoven ‘migration’ of populations, ideas, and praxes through both time and space.

Interpretive theories as the theoretical basis for the visual sociology

The article deals with the phenomenology, dramaturgical sociology and ethnomethodology as a theoretical basis for visual studies in sociology. Visual sociology and theoretical approaches are mentioned above are an attention to everyday life and construction of interpersonal interactions between social actors. Thus, visual methods of sociology are methods of collecting and analyzing visual data, and interpretive approaches are theoretical basis