Using a Head-Mounted Video Camera to Understand Social Worlds and Experiences

Abstract

1.1 This paper considers the use of digital video as a research method for qualitative researchers; specifically the head-mounted video (headcam) and the opportunities it offers for deepening our understanding of social life. Headcam is one of a range of recent technological innovations relating to video that provide researchers with new means of addressing methodological challenges. To date, little has been written about the use of digital video in relation to social research (Henley 1998; Pink 2007a). Even less has been written on the specifics of headcam video techniques and less still on its potential outwith a positivist framework. Our exploratory research on mountain bikers' and walkers' embodied, multi-sensory ways of knowing and experiencing landscapes demonstrates some of the possibilities that advancements in headcam technology can offer interpretative and reflexive approaches to social research.