Fulltext available Open Access
Type: Article
Title: Visual rationalities: Towards a sociology of images
Authors: Burri, Regula Valérie 
Issue Date: Jan-2012
Keywords: medical imaging; visual culture; visual sociology; visual studies
Abstract: 
Images are ubiquitous in (post)modern societies. Nevertheless, there is a lack of conceptual frameworks which relate sociological theory to a thinking about ‘the visual.’ Sociological theory has widely neglected to reflect on images and ‘the visual’ and to explore the role of images in constituting and reproducing ‘the social’. This article argues for a sociology of images. It aims to develop a conceptual tool to analyse images from a practice perspective. Following a theory of practice approach and referring to works in the sociology of science, it suggests the concept of ‘visual logic’ to analyse images sociologically. The article claims that social practice is intertwined with a visual logic. To investigate images from a sociological perspective, the article argues, implies to analyse the visual logic that shapes, and is constituted by, social practices. Taking medical images as an example and drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the article shows how this concept serves as an analytical tool to explore the social role of images. Physicians and medical researchers use images both because of their visual and non-visual dimensions. The article thus concludes by pointing to a multitude of visual logics – or, in their empirical form, ‘visual rationalities’ – that become evident when observing image practices ethnographically.
Subject Class (DDC): 300: Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie
HCU-Faculty: Wissenschafts- und Technikkulturen 
Journal or Series Name: Current Sociology 
Volume: 60
Issue: 1
Start page: 45
End page: 60
ISSN: 0011-3921
Publisher DOI: 10.1177/0011392111426647
URN (Citation Link): urn:nbn:de:gbv:1373-repos-14331
Directlink: https://repos.hcu-hamburg.de/handle/hcu/1111
Language: English
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