Poetry and Photography

TLDR

The study investigates how photography and poetry can serve as qualitative research tools to illuminate human behavior and the social world. The authors conduct an extended dialogue examining the role of these media in data collection, organization, and interpretation, and perform a thematic analysis of the conversation as research data. The work shows that creative media can function both as research instruments and as data themselves.

Abstract

This study explores the use of photography and poetry as tools of qualitative social research. The question guiding this exploration is how might the visual representation of reality (photography) and the compression of experiences expressed in words (poetry) provide insight and understanding into human behavior and the social world? The authors address this question through an extended conversation to critically examine the nature of poetry and photography in the gathering, organizing, and interpretation of data. In particular, both mediums are discussed in relation to the history of social research, methodological issues, and implications for social work. A subsequent thematic analysis is conducted by a third researcher and is presented as a means of treating the conversation itself as data for qualitative research. This exploration therefore demonstrates the use of a creative medium as research and as data for research.