Framing Sensations: Ethical Considerations of Teaching Visual Methods in Sensory Research

Mobile phones have simplified fieldwork photography and expanded ways of recording field data. Because an image can capture a variety of sensations, emotions and interactions, photography has become an essential tool in field practice and participatory methods have embraced photography. With the growth of social media apps, visual note-taking, i.e., image-based posting, has arguably displaced effective note-taking techniques. In the field of sensory studies, teaching with visual methods is well established but challenges remain when working in multidisciplinary contexts and introducing newbies to sensory methods. Ethical concerns are a particular challenge because research ethics does not align with the conventions of the major social media platforms. This paper reports on an immersive geolocated photography workshop developed through a funded project about community participatory methods in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as part of the global River Cities Network led by IIAS in Leiden. The photography workshop ran with different cohorts of university students, including sociology majors and a multidisciplinary internationalisation program; as a post-conference workshop; and in a community participatory project. In the paper, in addition to technical issues, we reflect on three aspects of teaching sensory studies using stills photography; first, visual methods are dominant in sensory studies yet are not especially suited to capturing a full range of sensations particularly olfaction and affect such as surprise or trust; second, phone photography enables spontaneous and timely shots but potentially overlooks issues of consent, copyright, and other ethical and legal concerns; and, third, snapshot photography often serves the needs of the shooter rather than the subject which may silence their voices and misinterpret or ignore their feelings. We conclude with recommendations for developing ethical practices for teaching visual methods especially when they are a first step among novices encountering sensory studies or used in other disciplines.