Visual methods: problematising process and product

The explosion of ‘visual methods’ such as photography, combined with more traditional observational approaches, have cemented visual senses as accepted and mainstream forms of research methods. In this paper, I discuss a number of vignettes drawn upon a number of research projects conducted with children, youth and families to critically consider different ways of thinking about visual methods. Initially from a point of ‘seeing’ visual methods as a way to authentically capture social life, more critical perspectives are engaged with, which explore how visual methods generate (rather than simply reflect) social life. Drawing upon a variety of perspectives, including Photovoice (Wang, 1994, Pink, 2001) and the posthumanist work of Kind (2013) and Nordstrom (2015) I explore different ways of thinking about how visual methods (and the technologies involved) are influential in generating the social life we seek to observe.