Preface: Image and the Social Sciences

Marta Cabrera^*
Oscar Guarin^**

PhD in Communication and Cultural Studies. Director of the Masters Program in Cultural Studies and Head of the Cultural Studies Department at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Email: marta.cabrera@javeriana.edu.co

PhD Student in Social Sciences, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil. Assistant Professor, History Department, School of Social Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Email: oscarguarin@gmail.com

It could be argued, generally speaking, that researchers who work with images occupy a minor, poorly understood and even underappreciated space in social science disciplines¹. This is due to the fact that the social sciences are mainly thought of as "disciplines of words"² in which the role of images is often limited to supporting or illustrating the written text.

Although the use of visual and audiovisual materials has a long tradition in some social science disciplines such as history, sociology and anthropology, there is currently a remarkable revival of interest in incorporating images into research. This is basically due to the dynamism of technological change over the past two decades and the lively theoretical reflection that has accompanied that process³.

Thus, the reflection on image now turns from art history, the field that traditionally addressedimage and its effects (although its emphasis was on special topics such as painting materials and the phenomenon of art as socially and geographically located), to the social sciences, which see it from different perspectives: as an object, as a problem and even as a methodological approach.The door has been opened to a variety of uses of image that have contributed to the development of interdisciplinary crossings and to the emergence of theoretical and methodological debates and questions, thanks to an interest shared by disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, as well as by inter- and transdisciplinary areas like communication and cultural studies, on topics such as visual and material culture, practices of representation, interpretation of cultural texts and understandings of forms of social relations, among others.

The main objective of this dossier is to provide an overview of contemporary work around image from a broad perspective, i.e., extending the notion of image (rhetorical, literary, aural, visual), recognizing its threefold status as cultural text, representation and site of cultural production, and examining its multiple anchors in an attempt to offer innovative theoretical and methodological paths to approach it.

The current proliferation of studies about image is indeed far from being a unified body. Approaches do not always coincide in their theoretical and methodological concerns, though, when seen as a whole, they complement each other. Each discipline has developed a particular approach to problems and questions raised by image, and the findings and answers have been just as diverse. Although it might sound overly schematic, we will now point at some common traits of these approaches.

The central concern of history as a discipline has been the possibility to constitute image as a source, which has resulted in a persistent series of methodological questions and in some reluctance to rely on the image and the information it may contain. Anthropology, whose origin and development has been closely linked to image, has focused its reflections on the questions of otherness and representation and, generally speaking, on the effects of colonialism and racism in the act of seeing and in the gaze itself. Meanwhile, sociology has deepened methodological aspects that go beyond the "reading" of images, increasingly incorporating audiovisual records of social processes that change over time, as well as ways to engage its subjects to create inclusive, active and participatory research processes and highly elaborated research results that add sensory dimensions to their analysis, an aspect that had traditionally been ignored in the sociological field.Similarly, the unanchoring of image from linguistic protocols (where image is seen as a text that can be read), the transition to forms of analysis that are attentive to the image's intrinsic logics⁴ and to its complex connections to power and knowledge⁵ have opened new perspectives for the use of image in several disciplines, and even for interdisciplinary areas such as visual studies.

The articles in this issue, then, address topics that we find central to the analysis of image as a phenomenon. The first one has to do with the methodological and theoretical dimensions of the image, as well as with its analytical possibilities. In this sense, the article by Tomas Perez Vejo, Can You Write History from Images? On Historians and Iconic Sources, addresses the possibility of making history based on images and the ways in which these can become sources for analysis. Transcending the mere question of method, it poses provoking questions about what we can find in and get from images as evidence of the past. It is a reflection in a line similar to that proposed by WTJ Mitchell⁶, i.e., not about whatimages can tell us, but rather on what we should ask them.

On a similar analytical line, Professor Schollhammer approaches the work Apagamentos, in which Brazilian artist Rosangela Renno rescues pictures of crime scenes from police records, and proposes in his article The Crime Scene: Reflections on the Contemporary Stage a series of questions about how forensic images constitute a turning point between memory and history where events meet their future interpretations, thus linking art history, literature and history.

A second issue revolves around the relationship between image and discourse, and particularly on the site of production of discourses on the image. Image, rather than being just a visual phenomenon, implies gaze and interpretation, which are sites of contention for power relationships, knowledge, institutions and traditions, as shown by the work of Carlos Rojas Cocoma, Tradition and Revolution: The Invention of Colonial Art in the Colombian Historiography of the 1966>s.This article presents the debate on the constitution of the field of colonial art from the analysis of the production site of critics and art historians, and shows the complex operations that are implicit in this process.

Another emerging core problem is the link between images and subjectivity. The emotional dimension and affective challenges involved in images utterly question the social sciences, whose analytical instruments find their limits when faced with the need to account for these elements. Thus, the article by Catalina Cortes Severino, SIENA/GA: A Picture in the Midst of Interposed Temporalities and Spacialities, aims to analyze the relations between memory and the past through the analysis of a family album, exploring new forms of writing that give an account of subjectivity, here seen as a suggestive starting point for reflecting on how images, the past and the body are dialogically intertwined.

Finally, the question of representation has always been at the center of the debates on image, which is why this issue includes an article on cartography. A map is a synthesis and a turning point of the dimensions of reality, of what is known and desired, to the point that it could be argued that maps are the quintessential image and the sumof the debates on representation. The article by Nara Fuentes Crispin, Triangles and hopes for accuracy: Between Armchair Geography and Geographic Fieldwork: Discourse and Cabinet of Juan Polo y Catalina, addresses the cartographic dimension of territory and the representations made by this Spanish geographer of the eighteenth century. Based on the knowledge and skills specific to this context, the researcher goes into the nature of cartographic representations and the complex processes involved in the creation a map from a set of data by someone who does not travel. Cabinet geography, as the author reveals, is an exercise in scientific gaze whose seeing instruments pursued the geographer's ideal: accuracy in measurement. In conclusion, this first special issue of Memoria y Sociedad on image and the social sciences offers materials to rethink image as a phenomenon and its theoretical and methodological implications, while encouraging discussion and debate. A second issue is being prepared, with which we hope to complete a cursory overview of image studies and their close relationship with the social sciences.

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¹John Grady, "The Visual Essay and Sociology" Visual Sociology 6, no.2 (1991): 23-38, Jon Prosser, "The Status of Image-based Research", in Image-based Research: a Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers (London: Falmer Press, 1998).
²Margaret Mead, "Visual Anthropology in a Discipline of Words", in Principles of Visual Anthropology, P. Hockings, ed. (Berlin and NewYork: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995).
³Marcus Banks, Visual Methods in Social Research (London: SAGE, 2001), Theo Van Leeuwen and Jewitt Cary, ed., Handbook of Visual Analysis (London: SAGE, 2001), Sarah Pink, Doing Visual Ethnography (London: SAGE, 2006), Jon Prosser, "The Status of Image-based Research", in Image-based Research: a Source-book for Qualitative Researchers (London: Falmer Press, 1998), Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Methods (London: SAGE, 2006).
⁴WJT Mitchell, "The Pictorial Turn", in Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), James Elkins, Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2003).
⁵Nicholas Mirzoeff, An Introduction to Visual Culture (London: Routledge, 1999), Irit Rogoff, "Studying Visual Culture" in The Visual Culture Reader, Nicholas Mirzoeff, ed. (London: Routledge, 1998).
⁶WJT Mitchell, "What Do Pictures 'Really' Want?", October 77 (Summer 1996): 71-82.

Bibliography

Banks, Marcus. Visual Methods in Social Research. London: SAGE, 2001.

Grady, John. "The visual essay and sociology". Visual Sociology 6, no.2 (1991): 23-38.

Elkins, James. Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Mead, Margaret. "Visual anthropology in a discipline of words." In Principles of Visual Anthropology, edited by P. Hockings, 3-10. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. An Introduction to Visual Culture. London: Routledge, 1999.

Mitchell, WJT "What Do Pictures 'Really' Want?" October 77 (Summer 1996): 71-82.

Mitchell, WJT "The Pictorial Turn ".In Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, 1134. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Prosser, Jon. "The status of image-based research". In Image-based Research: a Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, 97-112.London: Falmer Press, 1998.

Pink, Sarah. Doing Visual Ethnography. London: SAGE, 2006.

Rogoff, Irit. "Studying Visual Culture". In The Visual Culture Reader, edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff, 14-26.London: Routledge, 1998.

Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Methods. London: SAGE, 2006.

Van Leeuwen, Theo and Cary Jewitt, ed. Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: SAGE, 2001.