Photographs as narratives in social science research

Bibliographic Data

ID19344983
AuthorsMalavika Karlekar (Malavika Karlekar is at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi, India., corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume59
Issue1-2
Pages43-65
Publication date2025-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueContributions to Indian Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0069-9659 • E-ISSN: 0069-9667
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00699659251386229
OpenAlexW7163354249
LanguageEN
References cited10

It is only over the last three decades that sociology and social anthropology have taken seriously the photograph, its neglect due in part to methodological issues. In this paper, I look at how these visual narratives are to be viewed, understood and interpreted by the researcher, leading to conundrums of subject position, verisimilitude of an image and indeed, availability of visual material. My reading of photographs has led me to the conclusion that often, rather than confirm so-called conventional wisdom, the photograph can present additional information, and, in fact, in some cases, a counter-narrative. To illustrate my point, I discuss three very diverse universes—photographic representation of the 19th-century plague epidemic in India, a visual iteration of the civil war in Sri Lanka and the third, the domestic space of the matrimonial photograph and of changing marriage practices in India. I conclude that a reading of photographs can be infinitely significant for a researcher, even if sometimes these result in another, quite tangential—if not contrary—line of argument

Argument (complex analysis) · Narrative · Photography · Reading (process) · Representation (politics) · Subject (documents) · Verisimilitude · Visual culture · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Focus Groups and Qualitative Methods · Participatory Visual Research Methods

Tools

Open DOI