Visual methods

Visual methods, such as self-portraits, photo journals, relational maps, timelines, and video diaries, have increasingly been seen as valuable complements to other qualitative methods, especially interviews. The use of artistic tools within an interview is seen to open up the participant’s interpretation and reflections on a question, integrating creativity in the process of discussing meaning and associations (Bagnoli, 2009; Taylor and Snowdon, 2014b; Yip and Page, 2013), and offer new ways of understanding social and cultural experiences by encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and representation.

Overreliance on interviews and questionnaires privileges particular forms of cerebral knowledge production and knowing, including over-emphasising spoken accounts, and has the tendency to ignore the reality that not all knowledge is verbal (Eisner, 2008), thereby missing experiences that are sensory, visual, and experiential that cannot readily be captured through verbal or textual means (Greenough, 2018). Visual and artistic methods are frequently used to engage with young people and children, whose verbal capacities are often more restricted than adults; however, use of non-verbal methods have shown to be illuminating across age groups, and among marginalised populations allows expression for that which is felt rather than said (Greenough, 2018; Taylor and Snowdon, 2013).

Taylor and Snowdon (2014b) detail the use of visual methodology in their study of queer-identifying religious youth. Drawing on multiple qualitative techniques (interviews, maps, and diaries), Taylor and Snowdon explored the everyday lives, practices, and identities of young people, arguing that ‘showing the world’ through visual methodologies produced by research participants ‘is more agentic than [the] traditional format of “telling a world” through interview’ (2014b, p. 296). The use of drawing can also provide a vehicle to inspire memory associations, capture the unsaid, and concretise the conversation (Bagnoli, 2009; Morrow, 1998). The deployment of mind-maps in Taylor and Snowdon’s study asked participants to reflect on ‘the ways their identities change across these spaces and times’ (2014b, p. 296). The result of the creative and open-ended mapping exercise is represented in diverse and colourful visual data that ranges from pictures and graphs to Mandalas. Taylor and Snowdon’s methods sought to destabilise the power imbalance between the researcher and researched as it also intended multiple means of communication and reflection for the participants, where narrative “telling” is one part of the larger frame of how young people experience and capture their religious and sexual identities. This approach proved effective for underrepresented participants who might not feel comfortable in more traditional research environments. Their incorporation of visual mapping methods enabled participants to convey difficult experiences (Taylor and Snowdon, 2013). Where participants had felt the need to make light of their experiences in interviews with the researchers, deeper significance was expressed in visual methods and their journals, evoking a more complicated and, at times, troubling narrative. As stated by Taylor and Snowdon (2013, p. 21), ‘Arguably, “showing a world” is more agentic than the more traditional format of “telling a world” through interview...’ Exploring meaning-making through these visual representations allows for space to explore emotions that might not be easily expressed through words, including painful experiences (Guillemin, 2004).

Video diaries were utilised in both the RYS (see Page, 2017b; Yip and Page, 2013) and RGSY (Young and Shipley, 2020) projects, as one of three methods for gathering data from young people in the UK and Canada. These were participant-led; diaries were conducted over the course of seven days, and were undertaken at the participants’ own preferred time and location, offering flexibility and a more comfortable setting for their contributions. This accessed a different kind of data, enabling participants to focus their discussions around in-the-moment experiences, such as reflections on what books they were reading and conversations they were having. At the same time, video diaries created their own research dilemmas; while we had assumed participants would relish the opportunity to speak to the camera given the youthful popularity of YouTube-style direct camera interactions, the levels of comfort differed (Page, 2017b). Firstly, and as already indicated, despite already having participated in an online questionnaire and a face-to-face in-depth interview on the topic of religion and sexuality, some participants chose not to discuss sexuality any further in their video diary contributions, instead focusing solely on religion. This raises issues regarding the way the researcher becomes a coaxer (Plummer, 1995) in other research encounters (e.g. by penning questionnaire questions or by asking certain interview questions), which pushes participants into realms of discussion they would ordinarily eschew. Meanwhile, other participants chose to disclose greater personal information than had been discussed in the interview, such as intimate experiences of menstruation. Secondly, some participants demonstrated higher levels of proficiency and comfort with the video diary method compared with others. Those with more privileged biographies — e.g. in terms of class,

gender, and ethnicity - tended to relish the task and had greater amounts of confidence in putting forward a video camera “performance”. Meanwhile, others were more hesitant and cautious, and avoided looking at the camera or utilised notes as an aide. Page (2017b) has reflected whether video diary methods, while offering everyone the chance to speak, may cultivate certain barriers to access, extending the voices of the already-privileged, and failing therefore to dislodge existing inequalities. Video diaries are still underpinned by very cerebral forms of participation, with potential additional burdens to “perform” to the camera. Careful reflection is therefore needed to ensure visual methods - which are often badged as being inherently participatory (Brown et al., 2010) - actually do enable full participation.

The use of visual methods in religion research is pertinently linked to lived religion approaches. Ammerman and Williams (2012, p. 117) argue that the changing forms of religiosity as understood in the sociology of religion necessitates that ‘finding religion requires asking different kinds of questions in different ways’. Visual methods can enable researchers to capture lived religion and lived sexuality in their dynamic contexts; shifting trends in the practice of religiosity demonstrate that textual, doctrinal, or authoritative religious teaching are only one part of the larger experience of “being religious”. As the experience of both religiosity and sexuality become represented through intersectional lenses, the means of capturing this through a sociological method must also become more dynamic and multi-pronged. Therefore, visual methods become a key facet through which these aims can be realised.