Rethinking Visual Social Science: Methods, Technologies and Theories In Practice

Visual social science has undergone successive scopic, spatial, algorithmic, and theoretical turns. These views and technologies have expanded the spaces and scales available to visual inquiry while reshaping how visual culture is created, represented, and valued. This session invites papers that critically and constructively interrogate these developments — their specific methodological advantages and limitations, their redefinition of the relationship between researcher and researched, and the ethical and legal questions they raise. We welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that move beyond cataloguing emrging trends and tools to ask what is genuinely at stake as visual social science continues to expand.