Mapping visual-based methods: an interdisciplinary approach

Visual research methods (VRM) comprise a collection of methods that incorporate visual elements such as maps, drawings, photographs, videos, as well as three-dimensional objects into the research process. In addition, VRM including photo-elicitation, photovoice, draw-and-write techniques, and cognitive mapping are being leveraged to great effect to explore information experiences to investigate some of the central questions in the field; expand theoretical discussions in LIS; and improve library services and spaces.<br> Visual Research Methods: An Introduction for Library and Information Studies is the first book to focus on visual methods in LIS, providing a comprehensive primer for students, educators, researchers and practitioners in the field. Contributed chapters in the book showcase examples of VRM in action and offer the insights, inspirations, and experiences of researchers and practitioners working with visual methods. Coverage includes:<br> an introduction to visual research methods including discussion of terminology<br> an overview of the literature on VRM in libraries<br> methodological framing including a discussion of theory, epistemology,<br> practical and ethical considerations for researchers embarking on VRM projects<br> chapters showcasing VRM in action including drawing techniques, photographic techniques, and mixed methods<br> six contributed chapters each showcasing the results of visual research methods, discussions of the techniques, and reflections on VRM for research in information studies.<br> This book will provide a strong methodological context for the adoption of visual research methods in LIS and feature examples of VRM 'in action.' It will prove to be a must-have reference for researchers, practitioners, instructors, and students who want to engage with visual research methods and to expand their methodological toolkit.

The use of visual imagery and photography in the research process is a valuable addition to traditional research methods. Visual research methods have been successfully used to engage diverse groups and communities and empower participants in the research process. While many advantages of the use and applicability of visual methods have been described in the leisure literature, certain disadvantages do exist. This study explores potential challenges related to the use of visual research methods. The purpose of this study is to caution leisure researchers to consider underlying challenges related to visual methods that may be specific to individual research projects and contexts. In so doing, I discuss specific challenges related to collecting and analyzing data gathered using the photo-elicitation method in conjunction with in-depth interviews in an ethnography of an urban farmers' market.

Purpose: When the “linguistic turn” is replaced by the “visual turn”, there is a natural need for social scientists to embrace the new reality and incorporate visuals in their research. As a result, the importance of visual research, which centers on the use of visual sources, is growing. This paper provides an overview of how visual materials and related methodological approaches can be used in qualitative management and accounting research. Methodology/approach: We begin by reviewing the literature on the research methods, drawing from many disciplines such as sociology, organizational learning, management, and accounting. Next, we analyze three cases – already published papers in accounting – to illustrate how photography can be used in qualitative accounting research. Findings: There is a growing literature on visual research methods. Researchers have used visual materials as primary and secondary data and multiple methodological approaches. Visual methods can also be used in accounting research. Originality/value: This paper provides an overview of emerging methodological approaches that use visual materials and discusses how they can be incorporated into qualitative accounting research. Research limitations: Drawing a simple line between the various approaches presented in this paper is difficult as researchers can use visual material in unique ways throughout the research process. Therefore, the presented methodological categorizations can only help to better understand emerging visual research.

This chapter aims to open a discussion on the intertwining between Institutional Ethnography and visual methods in sociology. It does so by analyzing and discussing a number of studies. IE considers visuals (photographs, paintings, sculptures, videos, etc.) like texts (laws, regulations, reports, translations, and so on), which are indispensable elements for exploring text-mediated relations of ruling (Smith in The conceptual practices of power: A feminist sociology of knowledge. Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1990). Contemporary societies are characterized by people’s increasing use of visuals in their everyday practices that affect doing research and its dissemination. However, a limited number of IE studies explicitly discuss the utilization of visuals and visual research methods in IE research practices. This chapter illustrates how researchers have to date employed visual data, visual research methods, and visual dissemination methods in IE, what the other potential uses in the future are, and the aspects in regard to which the debate remains open.

This chapter addresses visual methods and examines how and why they have been under-utilised in voluntary sector research. It argues that this is surprising, given that as a creative way of understanding social problems and presenting findings to new audiences, visual research methods have a growing place in the canon of social science research. The chapter first presents a short history of visual methods and a rationale for their use, before also presenting a short scoping study of visual methods across voluntary sector journals, highlighting their lack of application. The main body of the chapter however focusses on the role visual methods can play in helping us research and understand charity advertising. This is done through a comparative study of charity beneficiaries (children in India, and homeless people in the UK), exploring what they think about their representation, and how they think the service they benefit from should be illustrated.

This article discusses visual research methods trialled with young African background refugees. We suggest here that visual methods offer a useful means of accessing the lives of minority young people, because they resonate with the visually mediated culture they are already familiar with and do not rely entirely on linguistic capacity. Visual methods are thus generative and able to secure participant interest and commitment amongst a group who may not be comfortable with traditional interview or focus group methods. The article observes that visual methods have until recently been neglected in the social sciences, and when they are applied it is often with the intention of undertaking semiotic or discourse analysis. Although the project discussed in this article was initiated with the intention of pursuing this analytical direction, we found that other rewards were to be gained from using visual methods. We discuss the project’s unanticipated research directions and its ethical challenges. The article closes by arguing that the reluctance of social science researchers to use visual methods are as much related to the historical development of qualitative research and the efforts of the social sciences to align themselves with empiricism and science, as with the specific limits and challenges of the approach.

IntroductionRelying on written or spoken words, like questionnaires or interviews, has been criticised for not adequately communicating people’s complex multidimensional experiences. Cognitive and physical efforts needed, and palliative patients’ inherent...

ABSTRACTVisual research methods involve the incorporation of visual material such as photographs, artwork and video into the research process. This approach to research is particularly well suited for use with children and youth as it complements verbal and written data collection methods, which some children and youth may find challenging. This video presentation includes a brief overview of three specific types of visual research methods used in recent library and information science research studies with children and youth. An overview of each visual research method is provided, as well as a discussion of the advantages and challenges associated with each method. The video includes examples of the types of research questions for which the surveyed visual research methods might be best suited, as well as associated ethical issues.

The practice of using participatory visual methods in research with young people is one that has come under scrutiny in recent years. Many scholars have examined these practices in order to question the singular and simple notions of voice that are often represented in these accounts. Taking up the challenges laid down by these scholars, this paper attempts to critically disturb some of the claims that have been made about this supposedly inherently collaborative and empowering practice. Drawing on research with a group of privileged young people the paper will argue that there is a real need for researchers to examine the ways in which different subjectivities are performatively produced in the participatory research process - to explore the ways in which the methods themselves may work to constitute difference and to position young people as powerful or powerless in this process. A call is also made for researchers to inspect their own practice and use of visual methods, in order to recognise the particular knowledges, subjectivities and truths that are constituted as a result.

ABSTRACTRecognition of the need to move from research on children to research with children has prompted significant theoretical and methodological debate as to how young children can be positioned as active participants in the research process. Visual research methods such as drawing, photography, and videography have received substantive attention in child-centred research paradigms. However, despite their increasing ubiquity in young children’s lifeworlds, technology or media-based visual materials have received little interest. This article reports on a study which used emoji as a visual research method for eliciting young children’s (aged three to five years) understandings and experiences of well-being. Findings elucidate the capacity of emoji as a visual research method for eliciting children’s voices, and considerations for its use in child research.

Objectives This article aims at reviewing the processes of experiences and learning in outdoor plays with a rhizomatic perspective, drawing them through a rhizomatic map, confirming authentic values of outdoor plays and their apsects, and making new suggestions for outdoor plays which have been recognized as superficial values on site.
 Methods For this, participatory observation and visual research methods were applied to 52 five-year-old young children of A Kindergarten in B city. And in order to figure out before and after the plays of the children, who cannot be figured out easily by participatory observation and visual research method, and their close relationships, semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The collected data through participatory observation, visual research method, and interviews were analyzed according to the inclusive analytic procedures based on the Pragmatic Eclecticism suggested by Young-cheon Kim(2016) and the validity was secured through the evidence of the ‘Credibility’ of Lincoln and Guba(1985).
 Results Young children’s outdoor plays starting from an accidental encounter with snails on the way to walk on a rainy day were created through endless connections and contacts. Their plays created by an accidental encounter with snails were categorized into an accidental encounter, recreation by chance, connections and connects, creating meaning, entering into the site of learning, dislocating and learning together, and thinking newly and without limit. Young children exist as nomads who reject territorialization, pursue new arrangements and desires which are different from the present time and try deterritorialization. Therefore, young children’s outdoor plays have neither start nor end and show non-linear and rhizomatic characteristics like roots digging into and stretching out underground endlessly.
 Conclusions Young children’s outdoor plays with the rhizomatic characteristics could not be understood with a tree-type perspective concluded with a center and they require teachers and adults to change their perspectives to the rhizomatic one which is not fixed but changing. And young children can meet the world, think and create learning as actors in plays when they have possibilities of changes and dislocation in play venue, time, play methods, etc.

Visual research is a fast-growing interdisciplinary field. The flexibility and diversity of visual research methods are seen as strengths by their adherents, yet adoption of such approaches often requires researchers to negotiate complex ethical terrain. The digital technological explosion has also provided visual researchers with access to an increasingly diverse array of visual methodologies and tools that, far from being ethically neutral, require careful deliberation and planning for use. To explore these issues, the Symposium on Exploring Ethical Frontiers of Visual Methods was held at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on 4 March 2014. The symposium was hosted by the Visual Research Collaboratory, a consortium of Australian and Canadian visual researchers, with support from Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne. The symposium represented the culmination of a process to develop a resource outlining principles of ethical practice for visual researchers and ethics committee members, the Guidelines for Ethical Visual Research Methods, which were launched at the event. The Guidelines present a framework for considering ethical matters in visual research, distinguishing six groups of issues united by an overarching theme: confidentiality; minimizing harm; consent; fuzzy boundaries; authorship and ownership; and representation and audiences.

Secondary schoolgirls’ experiences of persisting at school in rural Cambodia were the focus of this study. The study worked with 43 schoolgirls from two state-run schools. This paper reflects on how reciprocity and visual methods enabled the work of hearing the schoolgirls’ voices across language and cultural barriers. Reciprocity was a central concern and took the form of collaborative knowledge building to establish trustworthiness, as well as various reciprocal acts that ‘gave back’ to those involved in the study. The use of visual methods, such as visual narratives, self-managed video interviews, and advice posters sought to mitigate power differentials, address language barriers, and recognise schoolgirls as experts in girls’ education. The paper discusses the advantages and constraints of this innovative approach, and proposes that cross-cultural research that provides girls with autonomy during the research process is necessary if those working with girls seek to valorise girls’ voices and experiences.

The advent of digital has led to the proliferation of moving image data, signalling a shift not only in what we research, but in the way research is carried out and reported. The subsequent increase in interest in the use of digital film in the discipline is therefore not surprising, but critical reflections on the possibilities and limitations of the medium are lacking. In this special section of Area, I have drawn together a series of papers from practice‐led authors to reflect on the complexities, tensions and difficulties that are caught up with the potential of using film as research method and output. Here, I introduce the different papers and reflect on the legacy of analogue video and film in the humanities and social sciences. I argue that while they should not be ignored, the resulting geographical categorisations of film that were developed when the process was analogue – placing film either as a text that should be analysed and/or a visual research method – currently restrict our further understanding of this nascent form of knowledge production.

The potential of the visual image to foster reflection and to mobilise individuals and communities into action coupled with its capacity to bridge language and cultural divides has made the inclusion of visual methods (VMs) increasingly popular in resilience research as well as in research on sexual violence. In spite of this popularity, VMs are not beyond criticism and there have been calls to scrutinise the efficacy of VMs in research. Our aim, in this article, is to reflect critically on the usefulness of VMs to increase understandings of resilience processes in girls with child sexual abuse histories. We also consider the effectiveness of VMs in initiating social change by following up on audience members who viewed a screening of digital stories that dealt with the CSA experiences of adolescent girls. Our findings suggest that VMs are effective in creating greater awareness of resilience processes but in terms of initiating social change, dissemination of outputs produced through VMs requires greater consideration and clearer guidelines.