Breaking the frame: evolving practices of first-generation photo-elicitation researchers

Abstract

This article examines first-generation social scientists’ uses and understandings of photo-elicitation practices as they evolved over time and experiences. Participants have extensive experience with photo-elicitation in their own visual research practices. The research included speaking with respected visual researchers Doug Harper, Eric Margolis, Gillian Rose, and Dona Schwartz. As participants in a larger research project, they each take up photo-elicitation over video conferencing in unique and varied ways expanding what photo-elicitation means and is capable of achieving as a visual research method. The wider research project used photo-elicitation over Skype as an approach to expand traditional face-to-face sessions producing trustworthy, in-depth data and indicated that photographic practices by social scientists evolve but also carry disciplinary traditions, expectations, and practices. This paper documents some historical developments of first-generation photo-elicitation researchers demonstrating that practices are not static but can transform and contribute to co-creating new meanings, are open to unexpected developments, and accommodating new approaches as they arise. Practices based on first-generation researchers continue to influence and evolve visual research practices.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank Dr. John Grady, Editor, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful insights, Dr. Mark Clintberg, AUArts, Dr. Brittany Harker-Martin, University of Calgary, Dr. Sherry Martens, Ambrose University, and Brian Halsey, MA, MBA, for their critical, thoughtful encouragement.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

[1] As I revise this paper COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to ‘shelter in place’. This global experience has altered our use of technology, images, and research in unimagined ways. There is an opportunity here to further examine photo-elicitation and other visual methodologies over Internet-mediated technologies that expect the unexpected and accommodate new technologies and approaches to an ever-evolving practice.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Graduate Studies.University of Calgary [Faculty of Graduate Studies].

Notes on contributors

S.C. Dam

S.C. Dam’s research focuses on art practices in non-traditional art environments. It fuses interdisciplinary subjects and focuses on the relationships between visual research methods, visual culture, art history, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). She is a sessional lecturer at the Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary, Canada where she teaches art history, critical thinking, and thanatology and visual culture.

This research was conducted at the University of Calgary, Canada, as part of Dr. Dam’s PhD. She is now a Sessional Instructor at Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary, Canada.