IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v10y2005i1p141-177.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Photograph in Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth Chaplin

Abstract

This article gives an account of an ethnographic project which relied on the use of photography: the project involved taking photographs, asking for responses to them, and then analysing both photos and responses. Anything that plays a central role in an ethnographic project requires theoretical consideration. So, as the account of the project proceeds, the photos are considered from different theoretical viewpoints; and an emerging and subsequently recurring theme is the tension between what a photo shows and what a photo means. Discussion of this tension develops into a more general critique of the ways photos are theorised in social science. I conclude that the photograph in social science theory is at present a sad phenomenon, and that in order to remedy this situation, we should seek help from outside social science.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth Chaplin, 2005. "The Photograph in Theory," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 10(1), pages 141-177, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:10:y:2005:i:1:p:141-177
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.964
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.964
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.964?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephen Spencer, 2012. "Looking for Africville - Complementary Visual Constructions of a Contended Space," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 17(1), pages 29-46, February.
    2. Terence Heng, 2011. "Recent Methodological Opportunities in Online Hypermedia – a Case Study of Photojournalism in Singapore," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(2), pages 59-72, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:10:y:2005:i:1:p:141-177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.