This book is an exploration of the intellectual resources offered by the hybridisation of sociology and cinema: practicing sociology, or other human sciences, through images and sound. In the age of the image, the book invites sociological research, not only through the discipline's approach, but also through the joint learning of techniques (shooting and sound recording, derushing, editing, etc.) and film writing. Using concrete examples, the authors analyse what it means to think through the image, explain the different phases of making a sociological documentary, and question, through sociological film, the representations of reality and, more specifically, what remains invisible in the social world. The result is a reflective look at the theories and practices presented, to better equip the sociologist-filmmaker. Illustrated with numerous photographs that mark the history of documentary photography and film, the book is intended for both teachers-researchers and students in all disciplines of the humanities and social sciences who practice video and photography or wish to discover their uses. Students in documentary and film schools, as well as students on information and communication programs will also benefit from the book.

This new version of the authoritative textbook in the field of visual sociology focuses on the key topics of documentary photography, visual ethnography, collaborative visual research, visual empiricism, the study of the visual symbol and teaching sociology visually. This updated and expanded edition includes nearly twice as many images and incorporates new in-depth case studies, drawing upon the author’s lifetime of pioneering research and teaching as well as the often neglected experiences of women and people of color. The book examines how documentary photography can be useful to sociologists, both because of the topics examined by documentarians and as an example of how seeing is socially constructed. Harper describes the exclusion of women through much of the history of documentary photography and the distinctiveness of the female eye in recent documentary, a phenomenon he calls "the gendered lens". The author examines how a visual approach allows sociologists to study conventional topics differently, while offering new perspectives, topics and insights. For example, photography shows us how perspective itself affects what we see and know, how abstractions such as "ideal types" can be represented visually, how social change can be studied visually and how the study of symbols can lead us to interpret public art, architecture and person-made landscapes. There is an extended study of how images can lead to cooperative research and learning; how images can serve as bridges of understanding, blurring the lines between researcher and researched. The important topic of reflexivity is examined by close study of Harper’s own research experiences. Finally, the author focusses on teaching, offering templates for full courses, assignments and projects, and guides for teachers imagining how to approach visual sociology as a new practice. This definitive yet accessible textbook will be indispensable to teachers, researchers and professionals with an interest in visual sociology, research methods, cultural theory and visual anthropology.

Presented over two volumes, Visual and Multimodal Urban Sociology part A and B explore the use and potential of visual materials and methodologies that expand the level of analysis and ways of seeing in urban sociology.

This open access book explores the use of visual methods in migration studies through a combination of theoretical analyses and empirical studies. The first section looks at how various visual methods, including photography, film, and mental maps, may be used to analyse the spatial presence of migrants. The second section addresses the processual building of narratives around migration, thereby using formats such as film and visual essay, and reflecting upon the ways they become carriers and mediators of both story and theory within the subject of migration. Section three focuses on vulnerable communities and discusses how visual methods can empower these communities, thereby also focusing on the theoretical and ethical implications of migration. The fourth section addresses the issue of migrant representation in visual discourses. Based on these contributions, a concluding methodological chapter systematizes the use of visual methods in migration studies across disciplines, with regard to their empirical, theoretical, and ethical implications. Multidisciplinary in character, this book is an interesting read for students and migration scholars who engage with visual methodologies, as well as practitioners, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, curators of exhibitions who address the topic of migration visually.

Beads, Bodies, and Trash merges cultural sociology with a commodity chain analysis by following Mardi Gras beads to their origins. Beginning with Bourbon Street of New Orleans, this book moves to the grim factories in the tax-free economic zone of rural Fuzhou, China. Beads, Bodies, and Trash will increase students’ capacity to think critically about and question everyday objects that circulate around the globe: where do objects come from, how do they emerge, where do they end up, what are their properties, what assemblages do they form, and what are the consequences (both beneficial and harmful) of those properties on the environment and human bodies? This book also asks students to confront how the beads can contradictorily be implicated in fun, sexist, unequal, and toxic relationships of production, consumption, and disposal. With a companion documentary, Mardi Gras Made in China, this book introduces students to recording technologies as possible research tools.

Feminist Literary and Filmic Cultures for Social Action: Gender Response-able Labs examines teaching and research practices under feminist new materialisms, affect theories and response-ability through literary and visual products, and offers possible bridges between academia and activism to create feminist interventions in contemporary neoliberal structures. Featuring chapters from contributors across a wide range of disciplines, this book follows a methodological framework that blends traditionally opposite categories, such as theory and practice, and explores contemporary literature and films as case studies within innovative “feminist response-able labs”. In Feminist Literary and Filmic Cultures for Social Action readers will encounter a collaborative trans-disciplinary toolbox which can be of use to multiple disciplines and an invaluable resource to advanced undergraduate students, postgraduate researchers and scholars in literary studies, film studies, feminist theories, new materialisms, and affective pedagogies

This book shows how creative methods, drawing on innovative arts-based and design-based approaches, can be employed in health education contexts. It takes a very broad view of ‘health education’, considering it as applying not only in school settings but across the lifespan, and as including physical education and sexuality education as well as public health campaigns, health activist initiatives and programmes designed for training educators and health professionals. The chapters outline a series of case studies contributed by leaders in the field, describing projects using a wide variety of creative methods conducted in a variety of global contexts. These include a rich constellation of arts-based and design-based methods and artefacts: sculptures, dance, walking and other somatic movement, diaries, paintings, drawings, zines, poems and other creative writing, body maps, collages, stories, films, photographs, theatre performances, soundscapes, potions, rock gardens, brainstorming, debates, secret ballots, murals and graffiti walls. There are no rules or guidelines outlined in these contributions about ‘how to do’ creative approaches to health education. However, the methods in the case studies the authors describe are explained in detail so that they can be adopted or re-invented in other contexts. More importantly, these contributions provide inspiration. They demonstrate what can be done in the field of health education (however it is defined) to go beyond the often stultifying and conventional boundaries it has set for itself. Creative Approaches to Health Education demonstrates that creative approaches can be used to inspire those working and teaching in health education and their publics to think and do otherwise as well as advance health education research and pedagogies into new, exciting and provocative directions. It will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers in education and health-related fields who want to explore and experiment with creative methods and craftivism in applied inquiry.

Cultural sociology - or the sociology of culture - has grown from a minority interest in the 1970s to become one of the largest and most vibrant areas within sociology globally. In The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology, a global range of experts explore the theory, methodology and innovations that make up this ever-expanding field. The Handbook′s 40 original chapters have been organised into five thematic sections: Theoretical Paradigms Major Methodological Perspectives Domains of Inquiry Cultural Sociology in Contexts Cultural Sociology and Other Analytical Approaches Both comprehensive and current, The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology will be an essential reference tool for both advanced students and scholars across sociology, cultural studies and media studies.

Sociology through the Projector takes issue with the question of how contemporary film can help answering the general, abstract but still urgent question: what is the social today? This book explains the performative relation to contemporary social theory in which cinema functions as a tool for social diagnosis. There is much to be learned about social theory through an encounter with films as films are part and parcel of the society they portray. Increasingly more lay knowledge about social problems and facts stems from cinema as it offers to large audiences a popular and pedagogical introduction to social knowledge. Social theory cannot avoid a critical engagement with cinema as cinema interprets, invents, displaces and distorts the object of sociological inquiry. This book will provide a deeper understanding of contemporary social theory as the chosen films will work as a pedagogical route into contemporary social theory. The films represent a mix of European and American blockbusters and more aesthetically orientated films. The authors question several dominant topics and concerns within social theory and film studies. Firstly, by cross-examining a series of concepts such as identity, representation, memory and surveillance (filming social behaviour) which are of concern to both film theory and social theory. Secondly, by trying to develop imaginative approaches to standard social concerns such as exclusion, gender roles and inequalities, power, infantilisation and commodification of the social and psychological bonds. This book will be a great resource for students and researchers of Sociology, Contemporary Social Theory, Film Studies and Cultural Studies.