Workshop: Visual research methods (course content)

This is that space in the semester where you get to do your own visual research methods. I can’t tell you how or even with what visual content. That’s up to you — and dependent on your research question(s). This said, you can email me if you are wondering where to start, tell me what sorts of visual content could, maybe, be useful to you, and then I will brainstorm alongside of you.

As a series of steps, your research for this module should look more or less like the following:

Step 1: Choose what visual content you want to study. This can be visual content already in existence, or you can decide that you will ask people around you to create visual content (photos, sketches, or short videos are obvious choices) specifically for your research project

Step 2: If you chose, above, to ask people to create visual content for your project, do your asking and get your data now. (Example of what this might look like: if you are studying culturally specific understandings of success, you could ask people around you as well as friends/contacts abroad to make quick sketches of whatever they think of when they hear the word “success.” These sketches become your personalized data set; to be analyzed by you, just like you would analyze Instagram posts or a photo archive.)

Step 3: Analyze your imagery: scroll, click, skim, flip, surround yourself in, etc. Look for patterns. Look for content relevant to your project.

Step 4: In 1 to 5 sentences, tell us what you found that can be of use to you.*

*If you aren’t finding anything useful, try changing the data set you are studying. If you still cannot find anything useful, write the word “nothing” as your answer to step 4, and I will reach out to you to see if I can help.