Metodología de la sociología visual y su correlato etnológico

Abstract

This article discusses the possibilities and limitations of photographic images in field research. It acknowledges that social observation has always depended on a sociological perspective that focuses on the horizon from the viewpoint of reason. Innocent perspectives that reveal themselves through the immediacy of the iconic message are criticized. Since visual sociology should extend beyond the phenomenological perception of images, the author recommends an adequate balance between text and image in social research. And two paradigmatic cases are presented for the methodology used in anthropology and sociology: El Carácter Balinés by Margaret Mead and Bateson, for anthropology, and Gender Advertisements by Erving Goffman, for sociology. Key words: visual sociology, anthropology, photography, methodology.