Reality as a process: visual research as a whole

Reality as a process: visual research as a whole

First conscious yet methodically unstructured use of visual materials such as ethnographic photography and filming in anthropology dates back to 1942s with Margaret Mead and her husband Gregory Bateson who realized a field research on child development in Bali. Ever since, the use of visual materials in Social Sciences can be considered as a common practice among researchers although the normative structure of social sciences does hardly institutionalize this research method considered a sub-discipline of anthropology and that goes beyond conventional learning and practice. It would not be wrong to say that most of traditional academics in the Universities are unfamiliar with visual research techniques and do not have necessary framework to support and to evaluate such practice. A sociologist, an anthropologist or an ethnographer who is willing to use visual materials as primary research tools will not only have difficulties on a methodological level but can also encounter legitimation issues of his/her works. In other words, a field study that uses well known ethnographic research techniques such as participant observation and in-depth interviews are mobilized by the researcher especially in written (field notes to be used for the description and analysis), in audio (voice recordings to be transcribed) or at most mapping format but a much greater emphasis is given to writing practice for an end product to be evaluated properly. 

The appropriation of visual research techniques by Social Sciences has been difficult primarily because of the hybrid nature of still and motion: Is this Art, Science of some kind, Technique or just an evidence of the reality? Secondly, the lack of proceedings, evaluation criterions and general recognition of visual methods in Social Sciences has made of visual research a rare specialty, almost an unorthodox way to discover the social. Consequently, academic carelessness towards visual research of the social prevented its development on a methodological level by limiting its multidisciplinary, broadminded and even ambitious approach. Only a minority of researchers is daring to penetrate this complex but contently rich universe that embraces various fields such as photography, video and filmmaking with the aim of understanding, discovering and applying social visual methods for scientific purposes.[1] In fact, interaction between social sciences and other fields researching the social behind a lens does not produce anything other than “awareness”, “richness, mobility and viability of the content” and “impact”. Furthermore, social sciences are privileged because of their analysis capability that will guide the viewer/reader in the face of raw reality; visual images or motions are mostly followed by “readings” or “descriptions” for the purpose of creating an integral, intelligible, and decoded work of science. In the era we are living in, boundaries drawn between disciplines should disappear to give a rise for human understanding on a global scale. We need a more enthusiastic, committed, and innovative ways of discovering, constructing and deconstructing any reality that surrounds us; the use of visual materials as primary research tools are excellent “aliens” which offer a yet unknown but ready to be discovered material reality that embody researcher’s perspective as well as the social’s ways of being in the world. 

In the light of these considerations, I foresee an ambitious project which will use digital social imaging (photography, hybrid photography, video making) as a primary research tool in three metropolis in three countries: Brussels, Belgium; New Delhi, India; and Johannesburg, South Africa for the realization of a field research of twelve months in total (ideally four month in each city) to be focused on social marginalization in the fields of youth, urban poverty, and HIV-AIDS.[2] My main reason for choosing these cities is related to the fact that metropolis are open laboratories for research and especially a visual one because it selves play a big role in the construction of social marginalization by urban planning (distinction between center-culture; periphery-suburban areas-subculture) which insulate the old from the young, the healthy from the sick, and the well-founded from the poorly established. What the city easily offers to be seen and what it hides is a research question to be deepening in the materiality of living conditions, social interactions and public displays in specific neighborhoods -to be selected- that are known to be affected by social marginalization issues. 

To conduct such field research with the objective of using digital imagery as a primary research tool, I will start by making an explorative research by using photography. My first move on the field will be to take as many photographs as possible of the historical sites if existent, streets, schools, hospitals, commercial areas, recreation areas, walls, people and their houses (outside) in order to create a monograph of the neighborhood/s which mainly accommodate/s my subjects and my concerns. Photography and video making will witness all the moments of observation from the beginning till the end, my aim is to use visual materials as extensions of my body, to incorporate these experimentally in the whole research process to literally make visible every phase from collection till selection and description. 

Language barrier (at the first sight) between the subjects and me will become an opportunity to “chase” people’s reality: In most of the cases, I will have to see instead of asking and learning.[3] From general to specific, I will try to move my lens to culturally as well as personally meaningful, symbolic moments and situations that I will discover in time by participant observation and concentrate on visual insights reflected by the youth, the poverty and the HIV-AIDS themes. By changing my perception of being an outsider to an insider at some point of the research, I will try to discover subjective meanings/happenings of objectified realities in the material world, to penetrate private spheres and be loaded by actual realities in the process of living. Reality thought as a process will provide a big opening in visual research in a timely as well as perceptive manner; writing can hardly keep up with the movement of the reality and perception changes can be instantly caught on camera. At this stage of the field, video making can support photographic insights because it has the power to collect in motion all the selected momentum and situational images to create a meaningful whole. As a result, I would say that video making would occur after a conscious selection of specific people and their moments already captured by photographic research. Additionally, a new technology called hybrid photography can also be mobilized.

PhD project will focus on a specific problematic: “What drives change?” out of which I will discuss the role of digital imagery in research, its specific use in the field research (to show what and how?), and its proliferation in society. PhD project may also include an “impact survey” with the population in question to determine the most solid and striking criterions to be taken into account in the visual research.

A more innovative and quite unusual way to present the whole study would be to use I-docs. As the research will primarily focus on the creation of a concept (monograph of neighborhood/s) within which different elements (people, relationships, social situations, public displays) will take their place, it can easily permit the creation of such space. Besides, the collection of the study in a virtual environment will increase its holistic capability in terms of format, as it will facilitate its access and engage people through its interactive, non-linear approach.

[1] John Collier Jr. recognized as a major methodological pioneer in “photo elicitation” wrote a notable book in 1967 with Malcolm Collier titled Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method in which he crystallized a research methodology based on his visual anthropological experience as well as on the principles of anthropological research in the quest of behavioral patterns. 

[2] Field research can also be conducted only in two countries : Brussels, Belgium and Johannesbourg, South Africa or New Delhi, India in order to make a comparative study of social issues concerning the youth, urban poverty,  and HIV-AIDS. 

[3] Especially in India and in South Africa, the presence of a local ally may facilitate access to the field. A local social sciences student may be considered as a cultural guide.