Family Photographs as a Topic for Conversation

This paper outlines one aspect of a study that focused on generating and
analysing discursive data in order to explore older women’s constructions of
their relationships: the use of personal photographs as a stimulus for
‘purposeful’ conversation. Photographs have been implemented in many ways
throughout the social sciences and the approach discussed here was particularly
influenced by work that began in the 1970s and 1980s with studies using photo
elicitation (Collier and Collier, 1986) and those using what has become termed
‘the home mode’ (Musello, 1979). The resulting interactional data were then
transcribed and analysed using the ethnomethodological approaches of
conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis. Asking women
to talk about their personal photographs revealed a range of relational features.
In particular they stimulated remembered, storied accounts of events and
experiences relating to their relationships.