This article analyzes the limitations of qualitative research methods that over-privilege textual analysis in North American sociology graduate programs. I argue that visual literacy, as a methodological tool, is neglected and marginalized in the graduate curriculum. Training in visual culture including the use of photography, film and video, can contribute to theoretically grounded empirical research on race and racism. A form of academic apartheid continues to restrict the types of qualitative research methods that are authorized and regularly taught in graduate programs in sociology.
BeckerH (1974) Photography and sociology. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication1(1): 3–26.
2.
BeckerH (1995) Visual sociology, documentary photography, and photo-journalism: It’s (almost) all a matter of context. Visual Sociology10(1–2): 1–15.
3.
ChaplinE (2004) My visual diary. In: KnowlesCSweetmanP (eds) Picturing the Social Landscape: Visual Methods and the Sociological Imagination. London and New York: Routledge, 35–48.
4.
HarperD (1998) An argument for visual sociology. In: ProsserJ (ed.) Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers. London and New York: Routledge Falmer Press, 24–41.
5.
TwineFW (2003) Racial literacy in Britain: Antiracist projects, black children, white parents. Contours: A Journal of the African Diaspora1(2): 129–153.
6.
TwineFW (2004) A white side of Black Britain: The concept of racial literacy. Ethnic and Racial Studies27(6): 1–30.
7.
TwineFW (2006) Visual ethnography and racial theory: Family photographs as archives of interracial intimacies. Ethnic and Racial Studies29(3): 487–511.
8.
TwineFW (2010) A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy. London and Durham: Duke University Press.
9.
TwineFWSteinbuglerAC (2006) The gap between whites and whiteness: Interracial intimacy and racial literacy. The DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race3(2): 341–363.
10.
TwineFWWarrenJWFerrandizF (1992) Just Black? Multiracial Identity in the US. New York: Filmakers Library, 57 minutes.
