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Visual Sociology and Conflicts: From Social Responsibility to Agency.
Visual Sociology and Conflicts: From Social Responsibility to Agency.
Monday, 11 July 2016: 14:15-15:45
Location: Hörsaal 13 (Juridicum)
WG03 Visual Sociology (host committee) Language: English
Visual sociology is a functional and significant instrument by which awareness of conflict and related social issues, such as humanitarian crises can be made visible. Through using the visual, sociology can reach a large number of people in any social and political context. It also has the potential to diffuse complex concepts with accessible language. Increasingly, sociological documentaries are being used to diffuse and/or depict situations that would otherwise be confined to episodic journalism, or to studies that rarely reach a large public (Mirzoeff, 2005).
Conflicts constitute a challenge for visual sociology, which has a responsibility in how it approaches such complex and sensitive topics. This is with specific regard to the potential effect it might have on actions and policies (Tantrigoda, 2013), in addition to questions of reliability and methodological rigour.
This presents us with many critical issues including questions such as: Should we as visual sociologists control the way in which the inherent message of our research products are diffused through social media and the web? If so, how? How can we produce content that is truly representative of humanitarian crises and conflicts without indulging in rhetoric or sensationalism?
This session invites visual sociologists to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the visual in researching, approaching and representing conflicts (Sontag, 2003), and to analyse the role of visual sociology in advocacy and policy making.
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