The Visual Essay: Affinities and Divergences between the Social Scientific and the Social Documentary Modes.

This article examines the visual essay as a special
verbal/visual mode of expression that is practised by social
scientists and social documentarians, although still on a very
limited scale. Examining some of their commonalities and
differences sheds light on the particularities of the scientific
versus the social documentary approach more generally. To
conclude, a photo-essay from a social documentary photographer
is discussed, as it comes close to what could be termed a
sociological approach. This borderline application allows
elaboration of some of the specifics of the visual essay as a
mode of visual anthropology/sociology.
University of Antwerp, Wiltijk, Belgium


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