Visual Methods in Social Research. Marcus Banks
are both social anthropologists, one with research interests in India (MB) and the other with research interests in Africa (DZ); but we have tried to write this book to be of interest and relevance to all social scientists, no matter what their narrower disciplinary interests. However, many would argue that it is anthropology, in the form of visual anthropology, that has made most use of visual materials in the course of research. There is now a growing tendency to involve visual materials in sociological and psychological research (see Prosser 1998a; Reavey 2011), as well as to invoke sociological perspectives in well-established visual disciplines such as art history and film studies. We hope scholars from these and other disciplines, such as educational studies, health care studies and cultural geography, will find something of use in what follows and be able to read across the anthropological bias of the material.
The book is divided into seven chapters. Chapters 1–3 present a variety of general and introductory issues concerning images, including a discussion of the physical materiality of many visual forms and the need for this to be considered in research and analysis (Chapter 3). Chapters 4 and 5 form the book’s core and deal most directly with visual research methods in practice. Chapter 6 deals with the presentation of visual research results, and Chapter 7 offers a few more abstract thoughts by way of conclusion.
Acknowledgements
The production of this book would not have been possible without the help and advice of a great many colleagues, friends and skilled professionals. There are too many to name them all, but we would like to thank some individually for their particular help. Elizabeth Edwards, Alison Kyst, Olwen Terris and Chris Wright all agreed to be interviewed at length and to be endlessly pestered with trivial questions thereafter. Staff at the National Film and Television Archive in London, the Indian National Film and Television Archive, the Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies, the Imperial War Museum Film and Video Department, and Christie’s and Phillips auction houses provided information in the course of brief interviews as well as their professional assistance. Beth Crockett, Vanessa Harwood, Simon Ross at SAGE who worked on the first edition; Jai Seaman and Katherine Haw at SAGE, Catja Pafort for copyediting, all helped turn a jumble of text, images and questions into a book.
In Oxford, staff and colleagues at ISCA and at the Pitt Rivers Museum were endlessly patient when dealing with our many requests, while Mike Morris and Mark Dickerson tracked down many publications for us. Jonathan Miller, Malcolm Osman and Conrad Weiskrantz were all invaluable in helping to produce the scans and frame-grabs for the first edition that make up many of the illustrations used.
We also owe a debt of thanks to all the individuals and organizations named in the list of image credits, but particularly to Patsy Asch, Linda Connor, Paul Henley and David MacDougall who were more than generous in providing images and background information. More generally, those who provided references, feedback and intellectual stimulus include Elizabeth Edwards, Howard Morphy, Laura Peers and Terry Wright, as well as the many students who have contributed to visual anthropology courses we have taught over the years.
A final thank you goes to our long-suffering partners.
Image Credits
Those named below supplied images and/or own the copyright in them, but are not necessarily the image-makers. All images are copyright and every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders. If any have been overlooked, or if any additional information can be given, amendments will be made at the first opportunity. The lines from ‘Picture This’ (words and music by Deborah Harry, Chris Stein and Jimmy Destri) © 1978, Monster Island Music/Chrysalis Music are used by permission, all rights reserved.
Figure 1.1 David Zeitlyn
Figure 1.2 David MacDougall
Figure 1.3 David MacDougall
Figure 1.4 a-c Unknown
Figure 2.1 John Fox
Figure 2.2 Robert Gardner
Figure 2.3 Sasi Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman
Figure 2.4 Sasi Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman
Figure 2.5 Wordle.net
Figure 2.6 Thinkmap Inc.
Figure 2.7 John Wiley and Sons
Figure 2.8 David Zeitlyn
Figure 2.9 David Zeitlyn
Figure 2.10 a-b Oxford University Press, USA
Figure 2.11 Oxford University Press, USA
Figure 2.12 Christine Hugh-Jones
Figure 2.13 Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1895.61.1)
Figure 2.14 Marcus Banks
Figure 2.15 Marcus Banks
Figure 2.16 Yannick Geffroy
Figure 2.17 Marcus Banks
Figure 2.18 Marcus Banks
Figure 3.1 Marcus Banks
Figure 3.2 National Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
Figure 3.3 Unknown
Figure 3.4 Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.234.1.28)
Figure 3.5 Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology/National Film and Television Archive/Marcus Banks
Figure 3.6 Signum Technologies
Figure 4.1 Marcus Banks
Figure 4.2 Marcus Banks
Figure 4.3 Marcus Banks
Figure 4.4 Patricia van der Does
Figure 4.5 Linda Connor/Patsy Asch
Figure 5.1 Thames Valley Police
Figure 5.2 Marcus Banks
Figure 5.3 Library of Congress
Figure 5.4 David MacDougall
Figure 5.5 Sarah Elder/Alaska Native Heritage Film Center
Figure 5.6 János Tari
Figure 5.7 Melissa Llewelyn-Davies
Figure 6.1 Patsy Asch/Linda Connor
Figure 6.2 University of Texas Press/Karl Heider
Figure 6.3 ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture/ Thomas A. Carder
Figure 6.4 Marcus Banks
Figure 6.5 Cengage Learning/Peter Biella
Figure 6.6 Paul Henley
Figure 7.1 David MacDougall
Figure 7.2 Royal Anthropological Institute/Marcus Banks
1 Reading Pictures
Figure 1.1 Christmas 2008: local photographer at work in Somié Village, Cameroon.
1.1 The trouble with pictures
Anthropology has had no lack of interest in the visual;