Abstract
C. Knowles & P. Sweetman (2004) presented a thesis that "visual research strategies comprise a set of techniques which activate the sociological imagination in the broad sense in which Mills intended it." The purpose of this paper is to verify the validity of this thesis and portray the numerous possibilities related to visual methods through a project that I have been working on with my students since 1994.
Through this research project entitled "Narrating with Photographs: A Sociology of Tokyo," we conduct sociological research on Tokyo and Tokyoites. Each year, students produce and publish over 20 pieces, each comprising a photograph with a title and a description of approximately 400 words (in Japanese). Three hundred and eighty six pieces were published in the 15 years from 1994 to 2008. A visual method called "collective photographic observation" was developed through this project. Using the photographs of Tokyo and Tokyoites taken by students, this method comprises the following three successive stages: (1)seeing the photographs as objects stimulates a sense of wonder and brings out "small narrative elements"; (2)seeing Tokyo and Tokyoites through the photographs stimulates sociological imagination, which enables students to imagine and read in the "larger hidden social backdrop of the photographs"; and (3)narrating by using the photographs(formulating text backed up by fieldwork dependent on the photographs) anchors the meaning and enables the visualization and perceptualization of previously invisible "social processes and structures." The "dynamism of competition and cooperation" weaves collective frameworks and interpretations. A narrative based on photographs is created, and a visual narrative comes into being.
Photographs are "access points," which mediate between the sociological process and the daily lives of people. They have the potential of dramatically changing social research and sociology education.
