Enlighten, Narrate, Illustrate: A More Visual Social Movement Studies

Illustration has been an understudied genre both in art history and social sciences despite its commonness. With the visual turn in social sciences, a range of different disciplines have been increasingly incorporating visuals not only as part of their data but also as part of their methodology, mixing methods from art history and qualitative approaches. However, the general unfamiliarity of social scientists with the art making process, and the lack of rigorous methods and frameworks in the visual arts potentially led to certain gaps in these analyses. This also applies to the forms of illustration, which are used in analyses by social scientists without being acknowledged as “illustration.” An example is the recent research in social movement studies, where the graphic protest arts are acknowledged as sources of important information regarding the cultural, cognitive and emotional aspects of the protests without paying much attention to the creation process, differences between forms and artmaking knowledge. My aim with this paper is to review the literature focusing on the methods and frameworks, to understand how Illustration Studies can be bridged with social movement studies. Analyzing images requires an interdisciplinary approach, and most studies innovate their own methodology prioritizing different aspects of images. The nascent illustration research field is promising to make social movement studies more visual both as an art-based research practice and thanks to its unique proclivity for narrative, representation and memory. It is also by nature a research-based visual practice. In this paper I aim to discuss the potential benefits of including illustration studies into social movement research.