Taking photographs to make sense of the world? Advantages, limitations and challenges of the use of photographs in a qualitative study in Buenos Aires (Argentina)

MEO, ANALIA

Oxford, Reino Unido

Congreso; Oxford Ethnography and Education Conference; 2005

The Open University (Reino Unido)

This paper examines some advantages and limitations of the use of photographic material produced by respondents in my research about subjectivities and schooling in two secondary schools in the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina). To begin, I present a brief overview of the use of photography in sociology, the reasons for its marginal status and its associated advantages and disadvantages. Secondly, I describe my research questions, methodological strategy and application of photo elicitation technique. Photo elicitation refers to the use of a single or sets of photographs as stimulus during a research interview. The aim is to trigger responses and memories and unveil participants’ attitudes, views, beliefs, and meanings, or to investigate group. Thirdly, in order to assess the pros and cons of applying photo elicitation within my wider methodological strategy I undertake two kinds of comparisons.  In the first part, I compare the photo elicitation interviews with other “traditional” interviews. I look at how these two types of interviews differ in terms of their structure as well as what kind of data I was able to gather about certain topics in both situations. In the last part of this section, I compare different photo-elicitation interviews in order to see how the same device worked with different interviewees.