The Dictionary of Human Geography

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change the way geographers discuss their own

visualities. The complicity of academic geog-

raphy with colonial ways of seeing has been

clearly traced. But recent accounts of the messy

process offieldwork have emphasized the

work needed to produce such authoritative

ways of seeing: effort that does not always

achieve its intended end (Driver, 2001b).

Things in the world may remain obscure and

out of focus. And even if they are visible, some

theorizations of the visuality offer reminders

that being visible does not always make things

noticeable or knowable; bothethnomethod-

ology and Foucauldian work suggest that

noticing what is in full-view can often be

extremely difficult (Laurier and Philo, 2004).

Thus, as several geographers have agreed,

much about the relationship between visuali-

ties and geographical knowledges still requires

attention (Antipode, 2003). gcr

Suggested reading

Antipode, (2003); Cosgrove (1985); Rose (2004);

Ryan (1997).

visual methods The history of geographical

knowledge is replete with visualimagesof

many kinds created in order to describe par-

ticular places. Although what constituted

adequate description was often debated, the

recent interest in visual methods in Anglo-

American geography has been prompted in

part by a move away from understanding

images as in some way mimetic of the world

(seevision and visuality;mimesis). Instead, it

is argued that images are active participants in

the construction of geographical knowledges;

and it follows that to explore that participation

requires some consideration of method.

There are a range of possible methods for

interpreting visual materials (Banks, 2001;

Rose, 2007 [2001]). The most common

approach to understanding the production of

visual geographical knowledges depends on

making connections between a specific image

already in circulation, and the wider context of

which it is a part. Such approaches have

includediconography– explicating the mean-

ing of the discrete symbolic elements of an

image – and semiology – treating an image or

scene as a constellation of interrelated signs.

Currently, however, the most common method

focuses ona range ofaspects ofthe content of an

image in order to make claims about its effect in

the cultural field. This has been described as a

kind ofdiscourseanalysis (Rose, 2006), and is

the implicit method adopted by much ofthenew

cultural geography.

Fewer geographers have chosen to work

with images produced as part of the research

process. Some, however, have used images –

often photographs taken by the geographer –

to supplement written argument. Here, the

implication is that although photographs, like

any other visual image, become meaningful

in relation to the wider culture of which they

are a part, they also have some ability to

exceed cultural meaning. They have thus been

deployed by geographers with an interest in

non-representational theoryormaterial

cultureto suggest the agency of the more-

than-human (see, e.g., Edensor, 2005).

The second way in which geographers have

created images as part of the research process

is by making images that exemplify or develop

their analyses. Allen and Pryke (1994), for

example, created montages that brought

together what they saw as the different spaces

of financial corporations’ headquarters that,

although constitutively interrelated, were kept

separate in everyday encounters. Others have

systematically photographed urban environ-

ments in order to understand better the detail

and texture ofgentrification.

The third way in which images may be used

more centrally in geographical research has

been called ‘photo-elicitation’ by visual soci-

ologists. In this approach, photographs are

taken by people who the geographer has been

researching for some time. The photographs

are then used in furtherinterviewwork, as

powerful stimuli that allow the exploration of

issues that might otherwise not be broached

in more conventional interview situations (see,

e.g., Latham, 2004). gcr

Suggested reading

Rose (2006).

visualization A means of transforming data

into visual representations that, for those who

work within geographic information sci-

ence, takes place at the intersection of com-

puting graphics and mathematics. Other

human geographers, particularly withincul-

tural geography, locatevisionandvisual-

itywithin a wider techno-cultural frame, but

Kwan (2002) nonetheless claims that the

intersection between computing graphics and

mathematics allows more intuitive analysis

and can incorporate many different agendas.

Visualization in this specific sense has its

roots in early three-dimensionalmodelsinsci-

ence(Watson, 1969) and in the use of com-

puter graphics to display calculation results.

But there is a much longer tradition of visual

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_V Final Proof page 802 30.3.2009 7:45pm

VISUAL METHODS