Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation » (1st Edition)

Gregory C. Stanczak is Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at Williams College.  He received his Ph.D. with distinction from the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California with concentrations in culture and religion.  Stanczak's work over the past four years uses video methodologies, some of which has become short video reports for the Ford Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Stanczak edited the Visual Research Volume of American Behavioral Scientist and the author of a forthcoming manuscript through Rutgers University Press titled Engaged Spirituality. Currently, he is writing an essay on the use of photography for fundraising within global aid organizations.

Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation translates abstract concepts into visually-compelling elements of everyday life. Differing from photographs as illustration, this edited volume synthesizes images with analytic questions about the world "out there." Editor Gregory C. Stanczak crisscrosses disciplines in ways that highlight the multiple manifestations of a new interdisciplinary trend.

Introduction: Images, Methodologies, and Generating Social Knowledge   Gregory C. Stanczak     1
Observing Culture and Social Life: Documentary Photography, Fieldwork, and Social Research   Jon Wagner     23
All Photos Lie: Images as Data   Barry M. Goldstein     61
Capturing the Visual Traces of Historical Change: The Internet Mission Photography Archive   Jon Miller     83
The Failure of "The President's Choice"   Erina Duganne     121
Using Photography in Studies of Immigrant Communities: Reflecting Across Projects and Populations   Steven J. Gold     141
Inner-City Children in Sharper Focus: Sociology of Childhood and Photo Elicitation Interviews   Marisol Clark-Ibanez     167
When Words Are Not Enough: Eliciting Children's Experiences of Buddhist Monastic Life Through Photographs   Jeffrey Samuels     197
Signs of Resistance: Marking Public Space Through a Renewed Cultural Activism   Emmanuel A. David     225
Performances, Confessions, and Identities: Using Video Diaries to Research Sexualities   Ruth Holliday     255
The Symbolism of Video: Exploring Migrant Mothers' Experiences   Yolanda Hernandez-Albujar     281
Website Design: The Precarious Blend of Narrative, Aesthetics, and Social Theory   StephenPapson   Robert Goldman   Noah Kersey     307
Index     345
About the Contributors     363