Interpreting visual (and verbal) data
teenagers' views on belonging to a language minority group in Finland
pp. 753-781
in: Paul Smeyers, David Bridges, Nicholas C. Burbules, Morwenna Griffiths (eds), International handbook of interpretation in educational research, Berlin, Springer, 2015Abstract
This chapter is focused on photography as a research method and on the interpretations of photographs in ethnographic research. The case we have chosen in order to examine the use of photography in ethnographic research is an example of participatory photography where the participants have taken the photos. Many of the issues explored here with regard to participatory photography pertain as well to other ways of using photography in ethnographic research. We have chosen a recent study of ours as the case to exemplify the interpretation of photographs. The purpose of this study is to explore how Finland-Swedish students position themselves with regard to belonging to the Finland-Swedish group by using photography as well as interviews as the data collection methods. In particular we were interested in exploring how photographs and interviews complement each other. We are exploring the role of the researchers' own identifications and sense of belonging as well as habitus in the interpretation of data about participants belonging to the same language minority group, and presumably having a similar habitus.