Visual Sociology

Abstract

The history of visual sociology is intimately entwined with the evolution of sociology and has dispersed and episodic trajectories across various geographies and historical periods. In this chapter, I will present visual sociology not as a subfield of sociology but rather as a para-field, and trace some of the historical routes and roots contributing to the ongoing emergence of its post-disciplinary features. Addressing how and in what context the topic emerged will primarily focus on critical moments and thinkers whose contributions nourish the field in important ways but have sometimes been overlooked. To do visual sociology justice, this depiction must be considered a piece in a vastly larger ecology of schools of visual sociology intercontinentally and historically with diverging perspectives that merit being addressed in a more extensive work. The specific aims of this chapter are to present critical points of traction that attend specifically to the questions of how this post-discipline matters for the study of images; what particular set of problems are raised; what consequences visual sociology has had that matter for image studies; and generally what visual sociology offers for understanding images. Readers will not be surprised to find shared approaches, thinkers, and theoretical perspectives with other topic areas.