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Abstract
What is it that images can do that cannot be done by words alone? This article illustrates and discusses how visual expressions act as helpers of dialogue – anchors of meaning. The main argument is that the inclusion of pictorial material is a useful way to develop poststructuralist thinking technologies to further expand our understandings of the complexities of communication in individual as well as collective sense‐making. The primary aim of the article is to present the method – the image exercise Footnote 1 – so as to inspire other researchers to explore its potential wit in their own research contexts. It will also be argued that the method presented has the potential of establishing bonding, political awareness and meaningful collective knowledge production among all participants involved in a research process.
Notes
1. I use the name ‘the image exercise’ for lack of an original alternative!
2. After having used the image exercise for the specific purpose of exploring gender meanings in organisations, I have employed it in a number of very diverse teaching and research settings.
3. Betydninger af køn i danske bistandsorganisationer (Meanings of gender in Danish development organisations) financed by Statens Samfundsvidenskabelige Forskningsråd (Social Science Research Council) SSF, 2000–2003.
4. This research was partly funded by the Danish Research Council of Social Science SSF during the period 2000–2003.
5. Hee Pedersen and Gunnarsson (Citation2004) and Hegnhøj (Citation2004) among others write about the tendency in knowledge‐producing institutions to treat the gender question as taboo.
6. I have worked for over two decades as a photographer. This practice of course has given me a certain sensitivity towards and experience of the visual dimensions of life – a resource I leaned on in the selection process described.
7. In the case referred to here six persons participated, two women and four men.
8. At a preliminary testing of the exercise I found out that the size of the images had an effect on which ones were preferred. To avoid this you can choose images of more or less the same size, or place small images together, those of medium size in the same corner and big ones together. This is an example of a detail that seemed so insignificant that I had not considered its undesired effects.
9. A tendency that was later theorized as the two groups both talked the entire company/NGO into being ‘the other’ – a way of distancing themselves and creating a collective identity so to open up possibilities of maintaining critical and distanced positions.
10. Betydninger af Køn i danske bistandsorganisationer (Meanings of gender in Danish development organisations) financed by Statens Samfundsvidenskabelige Forskningsråd (Social Science Research Council) SSF, 2000–2003.
11. Lise and Maj are women, Kasper, Erik, Søren and Daniel are men. All names are pseudonyms to protect the identity of participants.
12. When I use square brackets it is my interpretation of the situation. As I see it the physical presence of the researcher is the alpha and omega if the bodily knowing of what happens in the situation it to be captured just roughly.
13. This activity was present at very many moments during the exercise. Men and women refer to sex and gender in cheerfully, playfully ways – ‘just for fun’. This research project concluded that discussions on gender relations often take place in non‐formal organizational spaces such as at parties, social events, the photocopying machine, the lunch table.
14. For further elaboration of the concept of gender teasing consult a forthcoming article ‘It would not hurt if you can take a joke’ (forthcoming in English).
15. See Connel (Citation2000) concerning normativities connected to his concept of global masculinities.
16. One could compare this process with a process that looks like ‘Barthes “stadium” – an attention without focus’ (Barthes quoted in Thorlacius Citation2002, 121).
17. The exercise moved from planned interaction with precise instructions, towards less directed interaction, from control towards less control. As is seen in the description of its moments, the participants acquire through the interaction a common point of reference and the structuring of the process bring a shared general view of the process, because they can return to their notebooks and because of the permanence of the images in the room.