Pre-congress Workshop Keynotes

The MDT sponsored pre-congress workshop on digital technologies and visual methods is excited to announce a series of keynote speakers:

Eric Laurier (University of Edinburgh): Using video in social research

Title: At the limits of the visual record: Videos of reading and writing practices

Biography: Eric Laurier is Senior Lecturer in Geography and Interaction at the University of Edinburgh. Currently he is working on the initiation, maintenance and ending of personal relationships as they happen. He continues to study a number of other topics including public space, cafes, car travel, family life, film production and wayfinding. He has been using video in his research since the era when it involved VHS tapes and is interested in exploring the possibilities offered by HD video, smartphones and Youtube for data collection. Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis guide his approach to analysing visual methods. His research has been used in policymaking and interaction design.

Anne Galloway (Victoria University of Wellington): Using drones in social research

Title: Drones, Sensors & RFID: doing research with, and around, ubiquitous computing

Biography: Anne Galloway is Senior Lecturer in Design Culture+Context at Victoria University of Wellington. Drawing on a background in anthropology and STS, Anne creates unusual and lively objects for public engagement. Her research focusses on finding new ways of thinking, making, and doing things with—not to—animals, vegetables and minerals. 

Katrina Myrvang Brown (James Hutton Institute): Using innovative mobile and visual methods in social research

Title: Researching on the move with minicam video: exploring more-than-human practices

Biography: Katrina Myrvang Brown is a senior researcher in human-environment relations. A key aim of her research is to understand the role of formal and informal regulatory mechanisms – from law to performative norms - in preventing and resolving land use conflicts.  To explore embodied and geographically situated practice, Katrina and colleagues have developed innovative mobile and visual methods, with a focus on minicam video ethnography.  She has used these methods to explore the key spaces of encounter and ‘contact zones’ of outdoor recreation conflicts (including those surrounding mountain biking, and wildlife disturbance), focussing on the role of the body, movement and emotion in the often-contested choreography of sharing space across mobile and species difference.  How minicam footage can inform stakeholder workshops – including using touchtable technology – is currently being experimented with in relation to upland grazing conflicts.

Helen Lomax (University of Northampton)

Title: Windows on the world? Images, audiences and productive contexts re-framed 

Biography: Helen Lomax  is Professor in Health and Wellbeing at the University of Northampton. Her research interests are focused on understanding the social and environmental factors which support individual and community wellbeing. She has a longstanding interest in health and social inequalities and in working with communities to understand their experiences. Her work is located in visual sociology, critical visual and discursive methods and inclusive and participatory methodologies. Current grants include an ESRC Award for advancing visual methods in the Social Sciences.  Helen is Co-convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Visual Sociology study group and on the Editorial board for Sociological Research On-line.