Combining images and words in order to understand the cultural meaning of practices: What photo-elicitation reveals

Abstract

Photo-elicitation (or photo-interview) is a qualitative research method that can be used to enrich understanding of consumers in the course of research on the socio-cultural meaning of consumption practices. This article seeks to demonstrate the value of using photo-elicitation when the aim is to describe, question and supplement consumers’ lived experiences. After having outlined the principles of the method and the main elements of its implementation, we will describe the various areas in which photo-elicitation is deployed. Finally, taking Senegalese migration as a starting point, the methodological and thematic contributions of photo-elicitation will be illustrated with reference to research on the socio-cultural and identity-related registers at work in consumption during migratory phenomena.

When respondents become photographers. Participatory photography: Characteristics, implementation, and interest for research in marketing

“…Finally, research in images refers to the materiality of photography and the tangible result of the act of photographing, which enables researchers to integrate visual data into their scientific output and enables participants to reinterpret the images at different moments of the research project. However, the marketing literature specifically investigating photography has mainly documented the elicitation dimension and the mental “can opener” capacity of images (Ndione and Remy, 2018) rather than exploring the participatory dimension of PVMs.…”

“…Recent work attests to the growing success of visual methods alongside the ubiquity of images in contemporary society (Arnould and Dion, 2018; Cléret et al, 2018; Ganassali, 2016; Rokka and Hietanen, 2018). Among the variety of visual methods available for documenting consumer practices, photo-elicitation is “a means of identifying recurrent themes in consumer behavior and, more specifically, in consumer culture theory (CCT), such as experience, material culture, corporeality and sensoriality, and identity, and cultural places and contexts” (Ndione and Remy, 2018: 66).…”

“…Less known in marketing than classical photo-elicitation, in which the images do not come from the respondent, participatory photography has specific value in an interpretive approach that privileges the individual’s perspective (Pauwels, 2015). The activity of “elicitation,” while present in participatory photography, is not given central attention here, as Ndione and Remy (2018) have already explicitly established its foundations and processes. Here, we focus more on the importance of the visual response to offer a complementary picture of how the approach is participatory and how photography serves as a modality of knowing.…”

Innovative methods in health information behaviour research

“…Clark, 1991;Clark-Ibáñez, 2004) there has been limited uptake in information behaviour research. Researchers might consider photo-elicitation as method for child participants (Poku et al, 2019), challenging diseases and disease disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (Danker et al, 2017), vulnerable groups (Copes et al, 2018), and to understand cultural practices (Ndione and Remy, 2018). From the medical literature topics of interest to information behaviour might be contexts of artificial nutrition and hydration for people in a permanent vegetative state (Cretin et al, 2017), lived experiences with pain (Rolbiecki et al, 2019), end-of-life care (Hajradinovic et al, 2018) and people affected by repeated self-harm (Edmondson et al, 2018).…”