Abstract
This chapter discusses how diffractive methodologies can enrich visual and video-based research methods. In human and social science research, diffractive methodologies aim to expand the understanding of objects of study by creating generative interferences and differences. Our aim in this chapter is to illustrate three ways of practising diffraction in visual and video research. These include (1) reading texts intra-actively; (2) reading the performing of an apparatus through another; (3) creating intra-actions amongst different forms of participation in interventionist research. We suggest that by multiplying our sociotechnical and relational ways of conducting video research and by reading one video-methodological engagement through the other, diffractive methodologies help us generate inventive provocations and produce new meanings.
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Notes
- 1.
In the painting, Randolph uses displacement (the figure is located in sci-fi like view of the universe) and interferences (between images; between symbols; between moments in history as the character is depicted as having different ages) to depict the state of ontological multiplicity and messiness characteristic of being a woman. The painting and its sequential re-reading by the painter and the scholar are used to exemplify the generative power of reading texts and images through one another and its capacity to generate new meanings. At the time of writing, the painting was available at http://companionrandolph.blogspot.com (accessed on 26 June 2020).
- 2.
For reasons of space only the first two studies made it into the final paper.
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Mengis, J., Nicolini, D. (2021). Practising Diffraction in Video-Based Research. In: Grosjean, S., Matte, F. (eds) Organizational Video-Ethnography Revisited. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65551-8_5
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