Family Photographs as a Topic for Conversation

This paper outlines one aspect of a study that focused on generating and analysing discursive data in order to explore older women’s constructions of their relationships: the use of personal photographs as a stimulus for ‘purposeful’ conversation. Photographs have been implemented in many ways throughout the social sciences and the approach discussed here was particularly influenced by work that began in the 1970s and 1980s with studies using photo elicitation (Collier and Collier, 1986) and those using what has become termed ‘the home mode’ (Musello, 1979). The resulting interactional data were then transcribed and analysed using the ethnomethodological approaches of conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis. Asking women to talk about their personal photographs revealed a range of relational features. In particular they stimulated remembered, storied accounts of events and experiences relating to their relationships. Visual Images and Social Science Personal objects – and particularly photographs – have been used successfully in various types of social scientific research. Looking at people’s experience of a stay in hospital, Radley and Taylor (2003) asked patients to photograph important aspects of their ward and then discussed the significance of the photographs with them. Another approach was to examine Spanish bullfighting through a series of photograph (Pink, 2001). These studies demonstrate the two strands through which photographs have been used in the social sciences: the first implements photographs as a topic through which experiences or events can be shared and examined; the second uses photographs as a resource through which an interesting phenomena can be explored. With the exception of anthropologists (eg. Bateson and Mead, 1942; Collier and Collier, 1986), social science writers have been criticised for tending to focus attention on language rather than image (Wagner, 1979; Harrison, 2002b). Life stories, for example, are organised around various forms of writing rather than visual images (Harper, 1994). Writers draw attention to the problematic or complex nature of visual imagery for social science, widely Narrative and Memory _____________________________________________________________________ 64 criticising it as under-developed (eg. Pink, 2001; Wagner, 1979; Musello, 1979; Cronin, 1998; Prosser, 1998). Despite these uncertainties, social scientists have incorporated the use of photographs in a wide variety of ways (Musello, 1979; eg. Chalfen, 1987) and the use of photographs has continued to develop (eg. Plummer, 2001; Harrison, 2002a; Malson et al., 2002). Whichever approach is taken, photographs are agreed to be a publicly available medium that can generate discussion and create a sense of community (Horrocks et al., 2002). A recent distinction in the body of work using photographs is discussed by Rose (2003). Whereas the general focus of photographic studies has been on the content of photographs, cultural understandings of them, or their meaning for the people taking them (Corbus Bezner, 2002; Pink, 2001), Rose instead examines their use in the home. She looks at which photographs are put on display, how these displays are organised and how decisions are made about which photographs come to be circulated amongst family members. These mundane uses of photographs and the functions they perform in everyday life is something that motivated my own study with my interest focused not on what photographs meant for people or who had taken them, but rather in what the photographs ‘did’ – how they made relationships relevant and how the talk around them was constructed. Making Use of Family Photographs Two methods of using photographs for social research purposes were relevant to the design of this research: photo-elicitation – the practice of using photographs as interview stimuli (eg. Collier and Collier, 1986; Wagner, 1979) and the ‘home mode’ (Musello, 1979; Chalfen, 1987) – the study of collections of family photographs. Generally in studies using photo elicitation photographs taken for a specific purpose are presented in conjunction with a semi-structured interview so that “the chosen images will have some significance for interviewees” (Prosser and Schwartz, 1998:124). In this way the subjective meanings that are attached to the photographs can be explored (eg. Heron and Williams, 1996). Family rituals and history have been investigated using this method (Munro and Madigan, 1999) and since the publication of Wagner’s (1979) collection it has been applied in a wide variety of investigations (Horrocks et al., 2002; Prosser, 1998; Harrison, 2002a). There are several advantages to this approach. First, photographs can be introduced as a topic for talk either to supplement or replace questions in the research process. Second, as Robinson (2002) suggests, photo-assisted interviews may reduce the power differential present in interviews. Third, as a result of talking around photographs rather than being Family Photographs as a Topic for Conversation ______________________________________________________________________ 65 asked to respond to questions, the participant may introduce accounts not anticipated by the researcher in designing the question schedule. Christopher Musello (1979) coined the term the ‘home mode’ to refer to the collections of family photographs that have received a limited (though continuous) amount of attention in social science (Spence and Holland, 1991; Rose, 1996, 2003; Chalfen, 1987; Collier and Collier, 1986). As with other areas, the photographs produced and accumulated within the context of family life tend to follow a similar pattern (Rose, 2003); what is considered ‘suitable’ to photograph is dependent more on social conventions than on individual decisions. So, as Harrison (2002b) remarks, some occasions (such as birthdays and weddings in the family arena), are typically photographed and represented extensively whereas others (such as funerals), are not (Corbus Bezner, 2002). This tension between what photographs people consider appropriate and inappropriate is emphasised by Musello in discussing “the personal and private process” of family photography (1979: 105). He illustrates how in day-to-day life these collections of photographs are often used to facilitate social interaction. Their display and distribution, as well as their taking, forms connections between people.