Image and visual technologies in social research: trends and challenges

Abstract

The use of visual technologies in social research has a lasting and turbulent history. The invention of photography, and later of cinema, marked the beginning of a relationship that promised to be long and fruitful, but was, instead, greatly affected by positivist rigors and by academia’s logocentrism. However, in the last decades, we can point to an evident visual drive, revealing a greater dialogue between the social sciences and the image, forcing the re-evaluation of paradigms and procedures. In this article we look at the present state of this association, as well as the possibilities and challenges presented by recent technological innovations.