I believe we desperately need a more equal society, a more equal world. Negative attitudes based on prejudices or stereotypes can stop people who are different, physically and/or mentally, from having equal opportunities and equal quality of life. This is disablism. It’s wrong. Attitudes need to change.
‘Different Lives’ is about the everyday lives of people who are different. Representing their ‘voices’ is not easy. It’s written in plain language and images to communicate my understanding of their everyday experiences. My interpretation of their life experiences, both positive and negative, is shaped by my own life experiences, so here I’ll briefly outline some that have shaped my current thinking.
I was born to a working-class family just after the end of WW2. We lived in a wooden shed for three years before moving to a rough council estate in the suburbs of Birmingham. Food was rationed until 1954. Schooling was poor and gang warfare, using knuckle dusters and chains, was common. My brother and I, along with our cousins, formed a ‘good’ gang which aided getting to and from school safely.
My involvement with vulnerable people began early in life. I was eight when I witnessed Bernard, a large 34-year-old local man with learning disability, being mercilessly bullied by a gang of local lads. He lived with his elderly mother nearby and was often seen standing on a street corner, wearing the same clothes for months, with is nose and mouth dripping with snot and slime. Bernard couldn’t speak but he was able to communicate happiness and sadness. The highlight of his week was taking his one shilling pocket money on a Saturday morning to the local sweet shop to buy wine gums. Local lads regularly stole his wine gums, then pushed him into a hedge for their own amusement. On each occasion he was inconsolable, so I took him home. The visual memory of him standing alone in the street crying and dripping in sorrow still haunts me. Only after our ‘good’ gang attacked his abusers and told them to ‘fuck off or else’ did his life improve.
At my boys’ secondary school other disabled pupils taught me how to face adversity and undermine others’ prejudices. Leonard, new to our school, had his face ripped off by a large Alsatian dog and had been bullied in his previous school. The teacher placed him next to me and asked me to protect him. I couldn’t. Instead, he taught me how to not react when others sniggered or whispered ‘ugly bugger’ when he was near. His lack of reaction was better than my reaction which was to give the whisperers a ‘Birmingham kiss’. Leonard blossomed whilst I learnt a lesson for life.
Playing soccer in the playground and for the school team was good for one’s self-esteem. Keith White, who always wore a white jumper, was our goalkeeper. He was brilliant, literally saving the day by making the most magnificent saves. He flung his body in all directions and sustained injuries and resulting pain when he landed or was kicked by members of the other side. Keith White was our best and bravest player even though he struggled with having one leg much shorter than the other as a result of polio.
Education is the most important profession in the world and for me a lifelong passion. Education shapes minds and societies. Teachers have the potential to positively influence future generations, combat negative ideologies, and help create more tolerant, knowledgeable citizens globally.
I taught people from widely different backgrounds and cultures. Nothing compared to the challenge of teaching math’s in Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Unit in New Zealand. The latter was challenging but rewarding – for example, after the course, two boys, twins, both congenitally deaf because of Rubella during pregnancy, left NZ for Australia and became well known chefs. It wasn’t my teaching. It was their learning. For years afterwards, whenever they saw me in town, they would charge across the road, shouting and giggling and wildly singing using hands, face, and body movements, to convey their happiness and zest for life.
At the age of twenty-two I taught pottery to people with mental and physical disabilities in a day care setting in Fleetwood, Lancashire, UK. My experiences varied enormously yet always full of fun or very surprising. My first day began quietly and ended with screams of laughter from the whole class when a severely disabled young girl passed me a message which read ‘I love Mr Jon’ – the class saw this coming, but I didn’t. Teaching pottery to a group of Down Syndrome pupils was, for me, the highlight of my teaching career in which humour took on more shape than clay pots. I also worked in a Residential Health Centre for people with severe disabilities where, again, I learnt more than I taught. One day a week I worked in an intensive care unit for the most disabled people. I walked into a small room and was about to sit on a bed when the nurse shouted, “Don’t sit on Milly”. There was a bundle of clothes on the bed which I thought were sheets for washing – I was wrong – it was ten-year-old Milly. She had one eye in the middle of her forehead, no mouth, no nose, or ears, only holes. No sound came from her and no emotion, and it was assumed that all forms of communication were impossible. She was washed and dried in silence. She had no legs and her arms and hands were very small. Staff tried for years to communicate with her without success. I also tried all forms of communication through the senses for months without success. Then one day I turned the tape recorder on without checking the sound level – it was full-on and the speakers blasted out “It was red and yellow and green and brown and blue” (from Joseph’s Coat of Many Colours). I reached for the dial but noticed Milly’s hands twitching in rhythm with the music so I turned up the dial further and the twitching became more pronounced. I grabbed a couple of plastic plates and tied them to Milly’s hands, and she banged away on the arms of her chair. The racket brought four or five doctors to her room who quickly joined in clapping and banging and laughing. Sadly, it was the only form of communication that we found worked. I left the hospital three months later and Milly died three years later.
Teaching International Education Management at Leeds University, UK, from 1999 – 2009 was interesting and not without difficulties. Leeds University was approached by Vice Chancellors of Chinese Universities seeking a course for leaders of Chinese universities. I already ran a course on education management to international students, but the Chinese delegation wanted one designed to take account of their culture. I offered a four-module course which included one module on ‘Women in Management and Leadership’. They refused and decided to take a course offered by Oxford University. Leeds were very annoyed with me since China was offering £500,000 for a 10-week course. Twelve months later the Chinese delegation returned and accepted that ‘Women in Management and Leadership’ would be included. I assume they recognised my reasoning: (1) females far outnumbered males in China in terms of higher education degrees in management (2) it was the future and reflected their culture i.e. Confucianism and communism. The course continued after I left Leeds University in 2010.
Academic Work
My teaching and life experiences shaped my personal and emotional focus emphasising the importance of seriously listening to, protecting, and educating, people who live different lives. My academic work balanced the ‘personal beliefs’ approach with an ‘evidence-based decision making’ approach.
Background
In 1985 I undertook a doctoral study at the University of York. This enabled me to conduct substantial field trials in pioneering visual approaches including photo/object and graphic-elicitation, visual diaries, cultural inventories, providing participants with cameras, coupled with analysis of ‘found’ visual data using a socio-semiotic approach. These research methods were unknown in the UK at the time and predate other empirical visual studies by 10 years. I subsequently published a paper in the internationally respected British Educational Research Journal outlining the visual methodology used. This paper was ground-breaking because it was methodological rather than single method in orientation and provided a grounded rationale for combining an extensive combination of visual methods within a research process.
Following completion of his doctorate he moved to Oxford as a Research Fellow, supported post-graduate students and lectured in the Department of Education. In three years, I conducted seven externally funded research projects mostly as the Principal Investigator. My studies of child abuse investigation and child protection (1,400 case studies of child abuse investigation) which involved collaboration with social policy and social work teams within the University of Oxford, led to changes in UK law (The Children Act 1989, and later amendments), national policy and practice, to consultancy work for two television programmes, and media work. I worked as consultant children’s complaint procedures in national organisations, including Barnardo’s and National Children’s Homes. The studies also led him to conclude that visual evidence was too often poorly collected, neglected, misinterpreted or over interpreted. From this point on the underlying aim of my academic endeavour was to address problems stemming from what I perceived, at the time, as an overt privileging of verbal and written words and the exclusion of potentially useful visual data. I had four broad aims: to make an impact on the direction of visual research in general and visual methodology in particular, within the social sciences; to enhance the rigour, robustness and range of visual methods; to promote wider appreciation and greater acceptance of visual methods within qualitative research; and to improve the quality of training in visual research methods.
Evidence of International Standing
I have considerable depth and breadth in conducting research, for example I have:
- worked on seventeen funded research projects, eight as principal investigator, six as co-applicant, and three as sole researcher,
- gained funding from diverse yet prominent funding bodies including the Economic and Social Research Council, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Social Science Research Council (USA), and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
- accepted invitations from five overseas universities as part of ‘Distinguished Visiting Professor’ schemes, including Harvard University.
- given 17 keynote and invited presentations and presented papers at a further 34 international conferences.
I believe academic leadership is established and expressed through high quality innovative publications and strategic leadership i.e., a planned series of interventions aimed at influencing the direction of an academic field of study. To make an impact on the evolution of visual research required a combination of short- and long-term strategies, of establishing alliances with prominent like-minded academics, and effective engagement with key academic organisations.
In 1996 I gave a keynote address at the ‘Images in Educational Research’ conference organised by the British Educational Research Association. Subsequently I gave 16 further international conference keynotes, 36 invited speaker presentations, and additionally presented papers at 34 international conferences. In 1996 my paper to the International Visual Sociology Association’s (IVSA) annual conference held in Italy was published, unchanged in the journal ‘Visual Sociology’. The paper was republished in ‘Visual Research Methods: Benchmarks in Social Research’ (15). Membership of the International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) at this time was drawn from visual sociologists, visual anthropologists and visual ethnographers, and their energy and expertise were pivotal in achieved a paradigm shift in visual research. I was elected to the Executive Board of IVSA in 1998 and remained a Board member until 2002. In addition, I was also a member of the Editorial Board (1998 – 2022) and later a Honorary Board Member (2022 – present) of the Association’s journal.
The IVSA, formed in the mid-1970s, was a particularly open academic forum and I hoped to harness long standing members’ enthusiasm for change, to encourage an even wider interdisciplinary constituency. I became a member of the IVSA’s annual conference steering committee and worked on the organising committee for Boston, USA (1997); Antwerp, Belgium (1998); Portland, USA (2000); Minneapolis, USA (2001); Santorini, Greece (2002); and Dublin Ireland (2005).
In the 1990s visual research was at a crossroads characterised by a clear paradigm split, with the ‘cultural turn’ or ‘critical’ approach on one side, and ‘empirical’ or ‘visual sociology’ on the other. There were obvious benefits to be gained by an amalgamation of approaches. The increase in membership and consequentially the range of academic paradigms represented within the IVSA was a step forward in bridging the gap in the paradigms but also led to a degree of friction with long-standing members. Fortunately, the organisation’s President, Jon Wagner, defused tensions enabling it to flourish. My contribution in the transformation process was to take on the editorship of the organisation’s journal Visual Sociology. It was a strong and respected journal but depended on the hard work and creative endeavours of the founding editor Douglas Harper, the pre-eminent visual sociologist. On taking up the editorship, I placed it on a professional footing believing that the resources of a major international publishing house would increase readership/audience and further elevate its status. I negotiated a contract with Taylor and Francis on behalf of the IVSA, designed the cover, typology and layout, and changed the name to Visual Studies to reflect the multi-disciplinary membership. From the outset his editorial policy was that the journal would provide a forum for debate across paradigms and between differing scholarly perspectives. The journal remains very successful and highly respected among a broad spectrum of scholars and disciplines.
The Prosser Awards Program of the International Visual Sociology Association was established in 2015 to recognise outstanding work by beginning scholars in visual methodologies. Because outstanding work in visual methodologies can emerge in a variety of disciplines and practices, Prosser Award nominations are encouraged not only from the social sciences, but also from the humanities, arts, education and other professions. (https://visualsociology.org/).
Strategic Publications
It was clear in the 1990s that the lines of demarcation within visual studies were invalid and unhelpful. My edited book Image-based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers was the first book in the field to present visual research not as a ‘standalone’ strategy taking one form or perspective, but as a theoretically and methodologically varied approach that complemented and/or drew on other approaches to conducting research. It is a large format, 318-page book, comprised of eighteen chapters. The contributors were leaders in their area, and the quality of the chapters is consistently high. It has become a classic in the field and, although published nearly three decades ago, it remains a central text to many visual research programmes around the world.
I contributed two chapters towards Image-based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative research. He co-authored chapter in this book, ‘Photographs within the Sociological Research Process’ (with Professor Donna Schwartz), was written to encourage word-based social scientists to identify with, and readily adopt, photography as a research tool. In giving primacy to winning converts to visual research through embracing an illuminating rather than critical style it opted to underplay the complexity of visual methods and avoided examination of innovative and possibly controversial methodological possibilities. Nonetheless, despite these inherent weaknesses, the chapter fulfilled its function. It has a very high citation index and is reprinted in two major edited methodological texts. My second chapter, ‘The Status of Image Based Research’, probed anxieties, insecurities and weaknesses, questioned current achievements and pointed to the need for new directions. Both chapters were strategic in intent, deliberately exaggerated some parts of what a full and complex picture was, and designed to complement the other chapters in the book. I believed Image-based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative research achieved its objective in shaping future agendas and stimulating scholarly debate about the potential of visual research.
My other publications, although all within visual sociology, are diverse in focus and either critical reflections about ways of conducting visual research or exemplars of visual methodology. Typical of the topics covered are: the visual culture of schools; the use of photography as a research tool; the ethics of visual research methods; participatory visual research; visual methodology; the history of visual research methods; and visual autobiography.
I was contacted in February 2026 by the IVSA who stated: The Visual Studies Companion is to be published by Routledge by the end of 2026. The publication of this volume is one of the many initiatives developed for the 40th anniversary of both the IVSA and Visual Studies journal. In addition to groundbreaking original chapters in the field of visual studies, the volume will feature some of the most impactful and influential research from the last four decades published in Visual Studies journal. As part of this collection, we would very much like to include your foundational article, “What constitutes an Image-based Qualitative Methodology?” Visual Sociology, Volume 11. 2 (1996): 25-34 in the volume. We feel that this article represents a crucial moment for Visual Studies and visual sociology that it is important to include.
International Collaborations
Over many years I established and maintained links with colleagues, institutions and organisations overseas, with a view to exchanging ideas and knowledge to our mutual benefit for examples:
In 2005 I was invited to Canada by four universities under a ‘Distinguished Visiting Professor’ scheme with the remit of ‘raising awareness and uniting visual researchers across disciplines’. I continued to collaborate with colleagues in Canada. Being a member of the Canadian-based Image and Identity Research Collective (IIRC, see www.iirc.mcgill.ca) who share an interest in developing interdisciplinary, image-based research methodologies and arts-based forms of study and representation, has many reciprocal advantages. I was involved in a major bid with members of IIRC (PI: Professors Weber and Mitchell) and short listed for a grant of £2.5 million from Economic and Social Research Council of Canada. I co-authored a chapter for a major Sage methodological book Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research, edited by two Canadians. In addition, I collaborated with David Howes, Director of Concordia Sensoria Research Team (CONSERT), Concordia University, with a view to developing sensory research methods as part of a research proposal to work with children and young people with disabilities.
The International Summer School in Visual Sociology is organised by the University of Bologna, Italy. In the past, for each event, four eminent Professors of Visual Anthropology and Visual Sociology from the USA have been invited present papers and run workshops over six days. In the summer of 2008, I was invited to take part making him the first external visual researcher from Europe to be appointed. Engaging with enthusiastic international students and working closely with distinguished colleagues was insightful and very satisfying for me.
I was invited to act as a lecturer and discussant at a three-day Advanced Seminar at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, Harvard University, in November 2008 (honorarium awarded). The seminar was titled ‘Emergent Seeing and Knowing: Mapping Practices of Participatory Visual Methods’ and the aim of the event was to take stock of accumulated knowledge and experience across several fields (education, medicine, public health, human rights work). It was envisaged, by the organisers, that the seminar would generate interdisciplinary cooperation leading to new proposals for international collaboration.
My efforts to create links with international organisations and institutions were multi-faceted. I was the first UK member of the International Board of the Visual Studies programme at the University of Houston, USA. Funding bodies from around the world called on my expertise, including the Economic and Social Research Council of Canada and the Economic and Social Research Council of South Africa. Interestingly, universities in the USA and Canada approached me to review applications for Promotional Chairs and Advanced Grade Chairs in Visual Research. In addition, I reviewed book proposals with a visual social science focus, for several large international publishing houses including Sage, Taylor and Francis, and Blackwell.
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) UK Funded Projects
(1) My work for the ESRC began in 2000 with the Visual Evidence: International Seminar Series which I co-directed with David Hamilton (Open University) and Robert Walker (University of East Anglia). We were able to bring together esteemed visual researchers from around the world representing anthropology, sociology, cultural and media studies, visual communication, photography, film and media, history and sociology of art, as well as those in the museum world and in the applied fields such as photojournalism and documentary film. This was the first time that international collaboration between leading visual researchers had taken place on any significant scale. Two-day seminars took place at the National Gallery, London, the University of Oxford, and the University of Leeds. I was able to welcome to Leeds, author Jon Berger, and American sociologist Howard Becker, who both presented papers as part of the project. A four-volume collection, Visual Research Methods, Sage Benchmarks in Social Research Methods series (2006), edited by David Hamilton (Open University), was an outcome of the seminar series. Sage publicity for the book states: “This collection brings together the contributions of key writers within both the symbolic and empirical research traditions, presenting the most influential statements on visual research methods and the central debates about visual culture in a diversity of fields.”
(2) My second involvement in ESRC funded research came through Real Life Methods, a node of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (October 2005–October 2008). This was a Leeds/Manchester study with Professor Jennifer Mason, University of Manchester, as Principal Investigator. I was actively involved in all four projects of the node, each with different research questions and different designs, but united by the aim of creating a step change in social research method and explanation. Connected Lives explored the dynamics of social networks and community interactions, through a multi-dimensional neighbourhood case study; Family Background in Everyday Lives investigated the role and the concept of ‘background’ in the inheritance, creation, and maintenance of family and interpersonal relationships; The Living Resemblances project investigated the social significance of family resemblances or likenesses; and Young Lives (part of Timescape, Professor Bren Neale, Director, Leeds) investigated the nature and dynamics of young people’s lives and times. A wide range of visual methods were used including participatory social mapping, regular field site walkabouts, videoed ‘home tours’, photo elicitation, cultural inventories, and video capture and analysis by CAQDAS (computer assisted qualitative data analysis). Visual methods were using conjunction with creative ethnographic interviews, biographical narratives, and National Omnibus Survey commissioned data. I was a member of the Executive Committee, made a significant contribution to the leadership and management of the interdisciplinary programme, and played a significant role in the Training and Capacity Building programme.
(3) In 2006 I successfully applied for ESRC Researcher Development Initiative (RDI) funding (£102,000, FEC) to run ‘Building Capacity in Visual Methods’ (November 2006–November 2009). The objectives were twofold: to provide researchers new to visual research as well as those with considerable experience, with core skills and advanced visual methods, to enable them to build a deeper understanding of visual methodology; and to establish a national infrastructure that is on-going, self-sufficient and developmental, that meets the ongoing needs of the research community. All courses were fully booked. This programme culminated with the 1st International Visual Methods Conference in Leeds in September 2009. This conference now takes place every two years with the 9th conference taking place at the University of Istanbul in June 2025.
This nationwide initiative was the first of its kind globally and placed UK researchers at the forefront of visual research. All countries around the world, especially where abuse of the vulnerable is prominent and increasing, and evidence-based decision is accepted and applied, need a similar visual methods course now. AI video and AI media are increasingly being used to abuse the vulnerable. Investigators of such crime are decades behind the perpetrators and urgently need to catch up.
The design of Building Capacity in Visual Methods was viewed favourably by the Director of ESRC Researcher Development Initiative, and I was invited to present a paper on the topic of Training in Innovative Methods: A Strategy for Capacity Building at the RDI annual conference in 2007 (Royal College of Physicians, London).
(4) In 2007 I successfully bid on behalf of NCRM/Real Life Methods for an SSRC/ESRC Transatlantic Fellowship for a visiting international scholarship under the title of Advancing Visual Methodology in Social Science. The NCRM could apply for only one Fellowship in this international competition and hence gaining this award was highly prestigious.
(5) In July 2008 I was invited to present a paper at the ESRC NCRM Research Methods Festival at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. The paper, part of the ‘What is’ session, was voted by participants as the most rewarding event of the three-day programme (data from Festival organiser, Graham Crowe, University of Southampton).
(6) The ESRC NCRM requested that I write a substantive review paper on visual methodology (I chose to involve Andrew Loxley of Trinity College, Dublin as co-author). The paper, Introducing Visual Methods, is on the NCRM’s website under ‘Review Papers’, was accessed 587 times in a 10-day period (and awarded a grant). Following the success of this paper I was contracted to write a paper on ‘Analysing Visual Data’.
(7) I was a co-applicant on the successful ESRC bid to fund ‘Visual Ethics: developing good practice’ (Rose Wiles, University of Southampton, Principal Investigator). This project aimed to identify visual researchers’ everyday practice in relation to ethics and map the ethical issues and challenges encountered by visual researchers.
(8) I was a consultant to the ESRC funded study Campaigning for Social Change: Understanding the motives and experiences of people with dementia (Ruth Bartlett, University of Bradford, Principal Investigator). The aim of this two-year study was to discover what motivates people with dementia to campaign. I acted as methodological consultant on this project advising on research design and participatory research methods.
(9) Phase 2 funding of the ESRC NCRM research projects, (2008-2011), had nine nodes. Only one, REALITIES: Real Life Methods for Researching Relationalities (Professor Jennifer Mason, University of Manchester, Principal Investigator) was concerned with qualitative research methods. Manchester invited me to act as a consultant visual methodologist on the ‘Critical Association’ project. This made me the only visual sociologist in the UK, to be involved in Phase 2 of the programme (COSTA Project Number. 9410237).
Academic Initiatives
In 2009 I realised several important publication objectives. These included completion of a co-authored book on Research Methods in Education for Oxford University Press, and a review paper for the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods on Analysing Visual Data. More importantly, I achieved a long-held writing ambition to contribute a chapter on visual research to the third edition of the Norman Denzin and Yvonne Lincoln seminal text Handbook of Qualitative Research. This book represents the state of the art in terms of theory and practice in qualitative inquiry and “is far-reaching and comprehensive, featuring a virtual “Who’s Who” in the human sciences.” (description by Sage Publications). Ensuring evidence-based decisions are put into practice, thus enhanced the quality of life for ‘Different People’, is the next phase for me and many others.
Finally
Currently, I am Visiting Professor in Research Methodology at Durham University, UK. I support numerous organisations, including ‘The Action Foundation, Kenya’, The National Autistic Society, UK, Scope, UK, Epilepsy Action UK, The Hope Foundation, Kolkata, India, Outside the Box, UK, and Educate the Kids, Kenya. However, my focus and energy, is on working with those who live Different Lives. Many in the world are vulnerable because they have no one to fight their corner. I believe it’s my responsibility to hear their voices and to tell their stories.
My personal life and academic experiences combined ensure a lifelong support for Mahatma Ghandi’s belief: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”