Visual Methods in Psychology: Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research

403 Pages·2011·2.682 MB·English

by  Paula Reavey

Visual Methods in Psychology
This comprehensive volume provides an unprecedented illustration of the
potential for visual methods in psychology. Each chapter explores the set of
theoretical, methodological, ethical and analytical issues that shape the ways in
which visual qualitative research is conducted in psychology. Using a variety of
forms of visual data, including photography, film-making, drawing, internet
media, model making and collages, each author endeavours to broaden the scope
for understanding experience and subjectivity, using visual qualitative methods.
The contributors to this volume work within a variety of traditions, including
narrative psychology, personal construct theory, discursive psychology and
conversation analysis, phenomenology and psychoanalysis. Each addresses how
a particular visual approach has contributed to existing social and psychological
theory in their topic area, and clearly outline how they carried out their specific
research project. The contributors draw on qualitative sources of verbal data, such
as spoken interview, diaries and naturalistic conversation alongside their use of
visual material.
This book provides a unique insight into the potential for combining methods
in order to create new multi-modal methodologies. The range of topics covered
includes sexuality, identity, group processes, child development, forensic
psychology, race, and gender, making this volume a vital contribution to
psychology, sociology and gender studies.
Paula Reavey is a senior reader in psychology at London South Bank University.
She has published widely on topics relating to child sexual abuse, social
remembering, mental health, space and embodiment, using memory work,
discursive approaches and visual methods.
V isual Methods in
Psychology
Using and interpreting images in
qualitative research
Edited by
Paula Reavey
First published 2011
by Psychology Press
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
© 2011 Psychology Press
The right of Paula Reavy to be identified as editor of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for indentification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Visual methods in psychology : using and interpreting images in qualitative
research / edited by Paula Reavey.
  p. cm.
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
  ISBN 978-0-415-48348-3 (hbk : alk. paper)
 1. Visual perception--Psychological aspects. 2. Psychology–Qualitative
research. 3. Visual perception--Social aspects. I. Reavey, Paula.
 BF241.V5673 2011
 150.72’1–dc22  2010036804
ISBN: 978-0-415-48348-3 (hbk)
Typeset in Times New Roman by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow,
Cornwall
Cover design by Andrew Ward
For Boris Reavey, my beloved and desperately missed nephew.
Contents
List of tables x
List of figures xi
Notes on contributors xiii
Acknowledgements xxiv
Foreword xxv
CARLA WILLIG
Introduction xxvi
PAULA REAVEY
1 The return to experience: psychology and the visual 1
PAULA REAVEY
PART I
Static media: the use of photography in qualitative research 15
2  Image and imagination 17
ALAN RADLEY
3  Bend it like Beckham: the challenges of reading gender and
visual culture 29
ROSALIND GILL
4  Using photographs to explore the embodiment of pleasure in
everyday life 43
LILLIANA DEL BUSSO
5  Narrating biographical disruption and repair: exploring the
place of absent images in women’s experiences of cancer and
chemotherapy 55
HANNAH FRITH
6  Using photographs of places, spaces and objects to explore
South Asian Women’s experience of close relationships
and marriage 69
ANAMIKA MAJUMDAR
viii Contents
PART II
Moveable features: using Facebook and video in
qualitative research 85
7  Textuality and visuality in MySpace communication 87
LEWIS GOODINGS AND STEVEN D. BROWN
8  Visualising children’s credibility: the role of the visual in
psychological research and child witness practice 103
JOHANNA MOTZKAU
9  The video-camera as a cultural object: The presence of
(an)Other. 119
MICHAEL FORRESTER
10  Girls on film: video diaries as ‘autoethnographies’ 139
MARIA PINI AND VALERIE WALKERDINE
11  Visual identities: choreographies of gaze, body movement
and speech in video-based mother–midwife interaction 153
HELEN LOMAX
PART III
Shared visions: Opening up researcher-participant
dialogues in the community and beyond 171
12  Visualising mental health with an LGBT community group:
method, process, theory 173
KATHERINE JOHNSON
13  Tribal gatherings: using art to disseminate research on
club culture 190
SARAH RILEY, RICHARD BROWN, CHRISTINE GRIFFIN
AND YVETTE MOREY
14  Risk communication and participatory research: ‘fuzzy felt’,
visual games and group discussion of complex issues 205
ANGELA CASSIDY AND JOHN MAULE
15  Picturing the field: social action research, psychoanalytic
theory and documentary filmmaking 223
JANICE HAAKEN
16  Towards a visual social psychology of identity and
representation: photographing the self, weaving the
family in a multicultural British community 241
CAROLINE HOWARTH
Contents ix
17  ‘I didn’t know that I could feel this relaxed in my body’:
using visual methods to research bisexual people’s embodied
experiences of identity and space 255
HELEN BOWES-CATTON, MEG BARKER AND CHRISTINA
RICHARDS
18  Travelling along ‘rivers of experience’: personal construct
psychology and visual metaphors in research 271
ALEX IANTAFFI
19  Psychogeography and the study of social environments:
extending visual methodological research in psychology 284
ALEXANDER JOHN BRIDGER
PART IV
Ethical and methodological reflections on visual research 297
20  Reflections on the visual in community research and action 299
DARRIN HODGETTS, KERRY CHAMBERLAIN AND
SHILOH GROOT
21  Polytextual Thematic Analysis for visual data – pinning
down the analytic 314
KATE GLEESON
22  ‘So you think we’ve moved, changed, the representation
got more what?’ Methodological and analytical reflections
on visual (photo-elicitation) methods used in the
Men-as-Fathers study 330
KAREN HENWOOD, FIONA SHIRANI AND MARK FINN
23  On utilising a visual methodology: shared reflections
and tensions 346
ILANA MOUNTIAN, REBECCA LAWTHOM, ANNE
KELLOCK, KAREN DUGGAN, JUDITH SIXSMITH,
CAROLYN KAGAN, JENNIFER HAWKINS, JOHN
HAWORTH, ASIYA SIDDIQUEE, CLAIRE WORLEY, DAVID
BROWN, JOHN GRIFFITHS, AND CHRISTINA PURCELL
Index 361
Tables
2.1  Approaches to using visual methods in social
science research 19
A9.1 Conversation analysis: transcription conventions 136
14.1 List of participant-generated food chain elements 213
Figures
2.1 Girls at pump (copyright: UNICEF, with permission) 21
2.2 Bathroom (copyright: Alan Radley) 24
3.1 A ‘feminised’ pose? 37
3.2 Breaking the mould for representing men 38
4.1 Ann’s photograph of the woods 50
6.1 The television 78
7.1 Extract 1. Jane’s MySpace profile 93
7.2 Extract 2. Jane’s first profile change 95
7.3 Extract 3. Wall post from English Rose to Jane 96
7.4 Extract 4. Jane’s second profile change 97
9.1 Video-recording accompanying Extract 2 128
9.2 Video-recording accompanying Extract 3 129
11.1 Video fragment 5.4: ‘Noisy fish tank’ 160
11.2 Video fragment 7.5 163
11.3 Video fragment 7.6 163
11.4 Video fragment 6.2 165
12.1 ‘I wish I could be like that’ 179
12.2 ‘Everything I consume in a day’ 181
12.3 ‘Alcohol’ 182
13.1 ‘Sociality and Belonging’ – one of the banners from the exhibition 195
13.2 ‘Divine’ 198
13.3 ‘Everyday Politics’ 199
13.4 Outside Banner advertising exhibition 200
14.1 Example freehand food chain drawing 211
14.2 Detail of freehand food chain drawing 212
14.3 Example ‘fuzzy felt’-style food chain image 214
14.4 Detail of ‘fuzzy felt’-style food chain image 215
16.1 My family weave 244
16.2 Red lips 246
16.3 The colours of Africa 248
16.4 Collective weave 250
17.1 Participant sculpture 261
17.2 Participant model 262