Family Photography and Persecuted Communities

Methodological Challenges

Bibliographic Data

ID12925580
AuthorsKirsten Emiko Mcallister (Simon Fraser University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume55
Issue2
Pages166-189
Publication date2018-04-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1755-6171 • E-ISSN: 1755-618X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/cars.12188
PMID29665295
OpenAlexW2802768586
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited39

This paper examines methodological challenges involved in conducting research on family photographs from persecuted communities, using Japanese Canadian photos as a case study. Approaching family photography as a social practice that instills dominant familial ideologies, the paper examines their "performative scripts" that arrange family members according to normative identities and roles. The paper argues that researchers are not immune to scripts that shape how and what we have been socialized to see (and not see) in family photos. The paper thus presents techniques to distance oneself from these performative scripts and one's involvement in their social and emotional dynamics. Once able to disentangle oneself from the genre's normative practices, the paper argues it is necessary to situate the photos in their social and political context of persecution and survival. Given the insular, inward looking character of family photographs, the paper concludes by calling for intersectional analyses, reflecting on how one might bring one's own family photos into engagement with the photos of Indigenous families and turns to those of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nation

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Ideology · Indigenous · Media studies · Normative · Performative utterance · Political science · Politics · Scripting language · Sociology · Computer Science · Gender Studies · History · Law · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory