Abstract
This chapter raises preliminary issues and questions intended for those undertaking urban investigation through the camera lens. It issues an invitation to think critically about what a photograph is and how photography might be deployed in critical urban research and commentary. Entire cities are un-researchable. Yet ‘slicing’ them for investigation raises issues of partiality, limitation and applicability to the bigger issues of our time. Staring into a crack in the ground might entertain you, but how useful is it really in understanding how the social world actually works?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Back, L. (2007). The art of listening. Oxford: Berg.
Becker, H. (2002). Visual evidence: A seventh man, the specified generalization and the work of the reader. Visual Studies, 17(1), 3–11.
Berger, J. (1977). Ways of seeing. London: Penguin.
Berger, J., & Mohr, J. (1975). A seventh man. London: Penguin.
Collier, J., & Collier, M. (1986). Visual anthropology: Photography as research method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Freeman, M. (1993). Rewriting the self. London: Routledge.
Harper, D. (1982). Good company. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Harper, D. (1987). Working knowledge: Skill and community in a small shop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Harper, D. (2001). Changing works: Visions of a lost agriculture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Harper, D. (2005). What’s new visually? In N. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 747–762). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Jenks, C. (1995). The centrality of the eye in western culture: An introduction. In C. Jenks (Ed.), Visual culture. London: Routledge.
Knowles, C. (2000). Bedlam on the streets. London: Routledge.
Knowles, C. (2006). Seeing race through the lens. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 29(3), 512–529.
Knowles, C. (2011). Cities on the move: Navigating urban life. City, 15(2), 136–154.
Knowles, C. (2015). Flip-flop: A journey through globalisation’s backroads. London: Pluto.
Knowles, C., & Harper, D. (2009). Hong Kong: Migrant lives, landscapes and journeys. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Knowles, C., & Sweetman, P. (Eds.). (2004). Picturing the social landscape: Visual methods and the sociological imagination. London: Routledge.
Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.
Leigh Foster, S. (Ed.). (1996). Corporealities: Dancing knowledge, culture and power. New York: Routledge.
Massey, D. (1999). Imagining globalisation: Power geometries of time-space. In A. Brah et al. (Eds.), Global futures (pp. 27–44). London: Macmillan.
Mauad, A. M., & Rouverol, A. with photographs by C. Chatterley (2004). Telling the story of Linda Lord through photographs. In C. Knowles & P. Sweetman (Eds.), Picturing the social landscape: Visual methods and the sociological imagination (pp. 178–192). London: Routledge.
Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pinney, C. (2003). Photography’s other histories. Durham: Duke University Press.
Sandu, S. (2007). Night haunts. London: Verso.
Simone, M. (2004). For the city yet to come. Durham: Duke University Press.
Smith, S. M. (2004). Photography on the color line: W. E. B. Du Bois, race and visual culture. Durham: Duke University Press.
Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the pain of others. New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Suchar, C. (2004). Amsterdam and Chicago: Seeing the macro-characteristics of gentrification. In C. Knowles & P. Sweetman (Eds.), Picturing the social landscape: Visual methods and the sociological imagination (pp. 147–165). London: Routledge.
Tagg, J. (1988). The burden of representation: Essays on photographies and histories. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Thrift, N., & Dewsbury, J. (2000). Dead geographies—And how to make them live. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4), 411–432.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Knowles, C. (2018). Researching and Photographing Cities: Getting Started. In: Nichols, S., Dobson, S. (eds) Learning Cities. Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education, vol 8. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8100-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8100-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-8098-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-8100-2
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)