The Impact of Photographs on the Researcher: An Ethical Matter for Visual Research

  • Kim McLeod
  • Marilys Guillemin
Chapter
First Online:

Abstract

Discussion about visual research ethics predominantly focuses on the effects of visual research methodologies on participants. The effect of visual research methodologies on researchers has received little attention and there has been no sustained investigation into how visual materials generated by the research methodology can impact on the researcher. This chapter draws on a research project where participants created photographs to share their experiences of antidepressant use and wellbeing. It shows how photographs act in particular ways with serious ethical consequences for researchers. The effect that photographs can enact on the researcher introduces an ethical issue that requires further attention and articulation by visual researchers. We discuss some of the implications of considering the action of photographs themselves to ethical discussion about visual research.

Keywords

Visual Research Relational Network Visual Material Train Track Ethical Effect 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Anderson, B. 2004. Recorded music and practices of remembering. Social and Cultural Geography 5(1): 3–20. doi: 10.1080/1464936042000181281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Barthes, R. 1981. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
  3. Bennett, J. 2005. The agency of assemblages and the North American blackout. Public Culture 17: 445–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Braidotti, R. 2006a. The ethics of becoming imperceptible. In Deleuze and Philosophy, ed. C. Boundas, 133–159. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. ———. 2006b. Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
  6. Brown, S., and I. Tucker. 2010. Eff the ineffable: Affect, somatic mangement, and mental health service users. In The Affect Theory Reader, ed. Melissa Gregg, and Gregory J. Seigworth, 229–249. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
  7. Catalani, C., and M. Minkler. 2010. Photovoice: A review of the literature in health and public health. Health Education & Behavior 37(3): 424–451. doi: 10.1177/1090198109342084.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Clark, A. 2013. Haunted by images? Ethical moments and anxieties in visual research. Methodological Innovations Online 8(2): 68–81. doi: 10.4256/mio.2013.014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Cox, S., S. Drew, et al. 2014. Guidelines for Ethical Visual Research Methods. Melbourne: The University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
  10. Deleuze, G. 1977. Literature and Life. Critical Inquiry 23(2): 225–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Gil-Glazer, Ya’ara. 2015. Photography, critical pedagogy and ‘difficult knowledge. International Journal of Education through Art 11(2015): 261–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Johnsen, S., J. May, and P. Cloke. 2008. Imag(in)ing ‘homeless places’: Using auto-photography to (re)examine the geographies of homelessness. Area 40(2): 194–207. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2008.00801.x
  13. Lapenta, F. 2011. Some theoretical and methodological views on photo-elicitation. In The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods, ed. E. Margolis, and L. Pauwels, 201–213. London: SAGE Publications Ltd..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Laub, D. 1992. Bearing witness or the vicissitudes of listening. In Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, ed. S. Felman, and D. Laub, 57–74. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  15. Massumi, B. 2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. McLeod, K. (2013) Wellbeing machine: Mobilising collective bodies to conceptualise wellbeing (PhD), University of Melbourne. Retrieved 20 Jan 2015 from https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/37710
  17. ———. 2014a. The missing work of collaboration: Using assemblages to rethink antidepressant action. Contemporary Drug Problems 41: 109–142. doi: 10.1177/009145091404100106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. ———. 2014b. Orientating to assembling: Qualitative inquiry for more-than-human worlds. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 13: 377–394.Google Scholar
  19. McLeod, K., and M. Guillemin. 2015. Adding the agentic capacities of visual materials to visual research ethics. Visual Methodologies (in press) 3(2): 27–42.Google Scholar
  20. Mitchell, C. 2011. Doing Visual Research. London: Sage. doi: 10.1177/0091450915600119.Google Scholar
  21. Mol, A. 2008. The logic of care: Health and the problem of patient choice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  22. Padgett, D.K., B.T. Smith, et al. 2013. A picture is worth…? Photo elicitation interviewing with formerly homeless adults. Qualitative Health Research 23(11): 1435–1444. doi: 10.1177/1049732313507752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Pink, S. 2011. A multisensory approach to visual methods. In The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods, ed. E. Margolis, and L. Pauwels, 601–614. London: SAGE Publications Ltd..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Poland, W. 2000. The analyst’s witnessing and otherness. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 48(1): 17–34. doi: 10.1177/00030651000480011301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. 2011. Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things. Social Studies of Science 41: 85–106. doi: 10.1177/0306312710380301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Rose, G. 2007. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, 2nd edn. London: Sage Publications Ltd..Google Scholar
  27. Simon, Roger. 2011. A shock to thought: Curatorial judgement and the public exhibition of ‘difficult knowledge’. Memory Studies 4: 432–449. doi: 10.1177/1750698011398170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Sitvast, J.E., and T.A. Abma. 2012. The photo-instrument as health care intervention. Health Care Analysis 20: 177–195. doi: 10.1007/s10728-011-0176-x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Warren, S. 2008. Empirical challenges in organizational aesthetics research: Towards a sensual methodology. Organization Studies 29(4): 559–580. doi: 10.1177/0170840607083104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Kim McLeod
    • 1
  • Marilys Guillemin
    • 2
  1. 1.University of TasmaniaHobartAustralia
  2. 2.University of MelbourneMelbourneAustralia

Personalised recommendations