International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

ISSN: 0951-8398 (Print) 1366-5898 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tqse20

Visual juxtaposition as qualitative inquiry in

educational research

Amy Scott Metcalfe

To cite this article: Amy Scott Metcalfe (2015) Visual juxtaposition as qualitative inquiry in
educational research, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28:2, 151-167, DOI:
10.1080/09518398.2013.855340

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Published online: 11 Dec 2013.

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International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2015
Vol. 28, No. 2, 151–167, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.855340

Visual juxtaposition as qualitative inquiry in educational research

Amy Scott Metcalfe*

Educational Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

(Received 16 September 2011; accepted 7 October 2013)

Visual juxtaposition is inquiry through contrast, facilitated by side-by-side

positioning of two images, or images and text. When combined with a
theoretical foundation that explores interactions between the material and discur-
sive elements of visual data, juxtaposition creates opportunities for qualitative
analysis that are not as readily apparent when individual images are considered.
Analytic extensions of this practice are described as archival, spatial,
multimodal, and intertextual.
Keywords: juxtaposition; visual methods; photography

Introduction
Visual research methods are increasingly accepted as a legitimate form of qualitative
inquiry (Banks, 2007; Emmison & Smith, 2000; Margolis & Pauwels, 2011; Prosser,
1998; Rose, 2007; Stanczak, 2007; van Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2001). A method that is
not well described within this body of work is that of visual juxtaposition, where
visual proximity of images or images and text provides an opportunity for an
expanded understanding of visual narratives and discourses. This paper explores the
theoretical and methodological aspects of visual juxtaposition as part of my ongoing
interest in the use of visual research methods in educational research. In this paper, I
offer some examples from recent educational scholarship that point to an underde-
scribed methodology of visual juxtaposition. Four articles utilizing this approach are
presented, prefaced by a brief discussion of theoretical considerations, drawing upon
the work of Barthes and Baudrillard. One of the articles (Gulson, 2005) is isolated
for closer examination, providing a platform from which to propose theoretical and
visual extensions. The paper concludes with considerations of the analytical distinc-
tions between and possibilities for archival, spatial, multimodal, and intertextual
juxtapositions in educational research.

Acquiring double vision

I first became intrigued by the methodological possibilities of juxtaposition after
reading an article in the Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology titled,
“Reconstructing Colonialism: Graphic Layout and Design, and the Construction of
Ideology” (Bowden, 2004). In the article, the author noted that although many visual
researchers have explored the connections between images and social power

*Email: amy.metcalfe@ubc.ca

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

152 A.S. Metcalfe

structures, few have specifically paid attention to the role of juxtaposition in the
creation of visual meaning (Bowden, 2004, p. 217). Bowden cited examples of this
practice in the use of photomontage in the early twentieth century, but noted that
photo essays also contained possibilities for juxtaposition through the intentional
placement of adjacent or facing photographs and their sequencing throughout a
book-length publication (p. 224). Bowden’s primary example was a 1953 British
government publication titled, The Colonies in Pictures, in which he found that the
ideology of colonization and British dominance was communicated visually through
juxtaposed images of agricultural abundance (a result of developmental investments
in the various British colonies) and moments of deference taken to British rule dur-
ing official visits. By “reading” the images and not only the text (Kress, 2010),
Bowden found that the editorial positioning of images in pairs allowed for meaning-
making to occur not just between image and text, but also between image and
image. The subtext of “becoming” British could be seen to “develop” as the reader
“progressed” through the publication.
After considering Bowden’s analysis, I started to notice juxtapositions in the edu-
cational research literature, but when found I realized that they were often not
explicitly mentioned as part of the authors’ research methodologies. Unlike other
methods of visual analysis (such as content analysis or the qualitative coding of
visual data), the focus of juxtaposition is on the contrast between images rather than
sorting images into thematic groupings. As we have become more conscious and
descriptive of other qualitative techniques, a full understanding of the mechanisms
and potentiality of visual juxtaposition is in order. Thus, my guiding questions for
this exploration are, “how have educational researchers used visual juxtaposition?”
and, “what are some theoretical and methodological foundations for this technique?”
The intention of this exploration is to first provide greater recognition of this method
and second to consider its variation in current practice, providing a basis for an ana-
lytical typology.

Theoretical foundations
Visual arts perspectives are increasingly introduced into the social sciences
(Knowles & Cole, 2007), yet theoretical gaps affect the depth of analysis. For exam-
ple, although many visual research methods rely on photographic media as data,
many studies ignore the theoretical and philosophical literature concerning photogra-
phy as a social phenomenon. Within visual theory, a defined area of photographic
theory has been asserted (Elkins, 2007), and it in itself can serve as a guide to
explorations of this form of visual representation. When combined with other social
theories, particularly those pertaining to discourse and narrative, photographic theory
can serve as a strong foundation for visual research methods. The work of Barthes
and Baudrillard is discussed below, as examples of two theorists who consider
photography in ways that are relevant to the analysis of visual data in educational
research, particularly in relation to visual juxtaposition.

Barthes
Barthes suggested that we should consider that the material aspect of the photo is as
important as the content and the context of the image. In Camera Lucida:
 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 153

Reflections on Photography (1982), Barthes remarked that the “Photograph belongs

to that class of laminated objects whose two leaves cannot be separated without
destroying them both,” such as “the windowpane and the landscape …” (p. 6). For
him, the photograph cannot be only understood as a picture of something, as it is
both object and subject. In this way, the medium is important, as we have also
learned from McLuhan (1964). Likewise, the position(ality) of the photographer-
technician, out of view but creating our view, is as much a part of the image as the
image itself. Barthes noted that, “It is often said that it was the painters who
invented Photography (by bequeathing it their framing, the Albertian perspective,
and the optic of the camera obscura). I say: no, it was the chemists” (1982, p. 80).
Yet Barthes was also aware of the social conflation of photograph and memory,
describing a shift of historical imagination with the birth of this technology.
While well known for his discussion of the processes of denotation and con-
notation in visual semiotics (Barthes, 1968), I turn instead to Barthes’ concepts
of studium and punctum (Barthes, 1982). The reason to focus on the emotive
aspects of photography rather than (or on top of) the semiotic is due to a lack
of clarity in the qualitative toolkit about what constitutes a “thick, rich descrip-
tion” (Geertz, 1973, cited in Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 217), visual or other-
wise. We are certainly acquainted with its opposite: thin, dull description. A
photographic equivalent exists, and qualitative research using visual materials
would be all the stronger for recognizing this. Barthes provides a way into this
affective and aesthetic evaluation by categorizing photographs into two themes,
or planes, of communication.
First, the studium gives rise to a person’s general interest in photography.
Photographs are encountered though a “general, enthusiastic commitment” (1982,
p. 26) and “unconcerned desire” (1982, p. 27) for the social role of images.
Barthes describes the studium as a personal but social process, as consenting to
be part of a world in which images are a means of communication and for
which looking is a cultural act. By nature of the image or the viewer, many
photographs will forever reside at the level of the conscious studium. Indeed,
Barthes described most photographs as inhabiting the space of studium as
“unary” (1982, p. 40), descriptive images. Barthes offered examples of journalis-
tic photographs taken in 1979 during the rebellion in Nicaragua (pp. 22–25).
Two are described as uninteresting; they do not break through the consciousness
of the studium. These images communicate, operating on the level of the social,
but they are not poignant in Barthes’ assessment. However, a third photograph,
of a Sandinista, his gun in one hand and the other stretched out “open, as if he
were explaining and demonstrating something” (p. 25), provided Barthes with
more cause for reflection.
At the level of punctum, images mobilize the viewer and disturb the studium
(1982, p. 26). Barthes said that this element, “rises from the scene [of the
photograph], shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me” (p. 26). He elaborated
by saying, “however lightning-like it may be, the punctum has, more or less
potentially, a power of expansion. This power is often metonymic” (p. 45). Barthes
frequently described the punctum in the language of desire. In one example, he
made reference to the unary banality of pornography (which resides in the studium)
in contrast to the punctum of Robert Mapplethorpe’s eroticism: “the photographer
has found the right moment, the kairos of desire” (p. 59, italics in original).
154 A.S. Metcalfe

While Barthes wrote of these visual planes of interaction in relation to single

images, not collections or pairings, the notion of the punctum could be brought to
juxtaposition. Building upon the “power of expansion” noted above, juxtaposition
provokes the viewer to think beyond the limits of individual images. Further, when
operating within the punctum, the place of disturbed consciousness, juxtaposition
marshals desire. As noted by Deleuze and Guattari, all “assemblages are passional,
they are compositions of desire” (1987, p. 399).

Baudrillard
Baudrillard’s notions of dualism are relevant to the topic of visual juxtaposition, par-
ticularly as his work challenges the veracity of “the real” (1994). Speaking directly
of the power of images, Baudrillard stated that:

it can be seen that the iconoclasts, who are often accused of despising and denying
images, were in fact the ones who accorded them their actual work, unlike iconolaters,
who saw in them only reflections and were content to venerate God at one remove.
(1988, p. 169)

He continued by saying that “thus perhaps at stake has always been the murderous
capacity of images” (p. 170), where the static, enduring properties of the image
bring mortality to a level of consciousness. Simulations, or simulacara, offer immor-
tality by referencing but not exchanging real for unreal. In this sense, the
photograph represents but does not replace, and the mechanical reproduction of the
photograph only reinforces its immateriality.
For Baudrillard, the socio-political sphere is replete with manufactured reality,
where images circulate as well as regenerate through “spiraling” (p. 16) and
“operational” (p. 18) negativity (1994). In this cycle, a “vertigo of interpretation”
(Baudrillard, 1988, p. 175), “all of the referentials intermingle their discourses in a
circular, Moebian compulsion” (p. 176). Proving the real can only occur by
exposing the opposite. Something is valuable when you can show an abject effect; a
void is known if it can be filled. He explained that, “every form of power, every sit-
uation speaks of itself by denial, in order to attempt to escape, by simulation of
death, its real agony” (p. 177). For Baudrillard, the process of representation entails
a movement from simulation to simulacra (1994). He described this process as a
flow from profound reality to complete fabrication:

Such would be the successive phases of the image:

it is the reflection of a profound reality;
it masks and denatures a profound reality;
it masks the absence of a profound reality;
it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum. (1994, p. 6)

We may then understand that the creation of the simulacrum ensures the death of
the referent; as the representation becomes real, it simultaneously reminds us of the
absence of the original. In this way, we can consider any photograph to be an inher-
ent juxtaposition of the lived moment and the image of that moment. The power of
photography is lost if this duality is unrecognized or forgotten.
 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 155

Juxtaposing Barthes and Baudrillard

Baudrillard’s essay titled “War Porn” (2006) can be understood as a treatise about
the studium and punctum of two visually saturated events: the World Trade Center
collapse on 11 September 2001 and the later persecution of prisoners at Abu Ghraib
in Bagdad. However, unlike the singular focus of Barthes, Baudrillard saw these
two events through the juxtaposition of their imagery. That he placed these events
within a framework of pornography also ties the analysis to Barthes, and Deleuze
and Guattari’s (1987) concept of the desiring machinations of the war apparatus. To
Barthes pornography belongs to the studium, which is how we might characterize
Baudrillard’s description of the images of 9/11 and Abu Ghraib, and others that pro-
liferate during war: “due to their omnipresence, due to the prevailing rule of the
world of making everything visible, the images, or present-day images, have become
substantially pornographic” (Baudrillard, 2006, p. 87). That 9/11 and Abu Ghraib
are situations uniquely associated with imagery is also no coincidence, according to
Baudrillard: “those who live by the spectacle will die by the spectacle” (p. 87).
The images described (but interestingly not reproduced) in “War Porn”
themselves may sit at the hyper-real, re-normalized level of common pornography
(Barthes’ studium), but the juxtaposition performed by Baudrillard provides the
punctum – the piercing of a collectively numbed consciousness. Here we find the
discursive power, the “operational negativity” of a constructed visual narrative. The
juxtaposition of the World Trade Center’s collapse and the torture of Iraqi prisoners
at Abu Ghraib permits the question, “whose terrorism, whose humiliation?” in a way
that plays upon the dualisms and impunity of war. Contrast draws out the similarities,
as we desire to make meaning from the space between the two image-events. We are
pierced through twice, but desire to find a singular, guilty arrow.
While other visual theorists can undoubtedly be drawn into the discussion of
visual juxtaposition, the work of Barthes and Baudrillard described above encour-
ages us to consider the photograph as marked by layers of meaning-making and
duality. Juxtaposition is a fractious visual technique that disrupts the communicative
effects of each image and offers an opportunity for semiotic expansion, even
multiplicities of understanding in a more post-structural sense. In addition, contrast
– itself a photographic concept of lights and darks – helps to illuminate the
inter-visual narrative.

Juxtaposition in educational research

Educational researchers have included the process of selecting, comparing, and con-
trasting images in their analysis, although this has not been explicitly identified as
visual juxtaposition (see, e.g., Rousmaniere’s [2001] discussion of a series of three
photographs of a class of Norwegian schoolgirls, taken in 1895). Below I present a
selection of four articles that utilize aspects of visual juxtaposition in the analysis.
Rather than the result of a systematic review of educational research, this collection
of papers is a purposive assemblage to emphasize the features found in selected
works instead of making a claim about the field as a whole. The articles then stand
as a collection of individual cases, with the intent of mapping these points of inquiry
rather than providing a tracing of the entire field of education, in a rhizomatic sense
as described by Deleuze and Guattari (1987). The articles are presented
chronologically, although they were not originally encountered in this fashion.
156 A.S. Metcalfe

Class pictures
In an article appearing in the journal Visual Studies, published by the International
Visual Sociology Association, Margolis (1999) conducted an analysis of archival
photographs and the archives themselves for his article “Class Pictures: Representa-
tions of Race, Gender and Ability in a Century of School Photography.” Margolis
searched national (US) digital archives for images related to school photography,
and in the process began to question the values and visual discourses that led to the
photographs being taken, and later archived, as representations of American school-
ing. His study was both visual and archaeological (Foucault, 1969–2002), in that the
work was enabled by the large-scale digitization of archival photographs that took
place in the 1990s and subsequent deposition of those images in online, searchable
image repositories. Although he noted the obvious research benefits of this new
availability, he also presciently remarked that “[a]s the Internet develops into what
will be in effect a single archive, the meanings of the individual collections (and
photographs) will tend to become submerged” (Margolis, 1999, p. 8). As the digital
“simulacra” (Baudrillard, 2005) are removed from dusty archival fonds and scrap-
books to be instead placed within the electronic file, the historical context of images
becomes odorless metadata, not the sensory or tactile experience that researchers
had known before. Furthermore, the historical relations between image and archive
are lost, as each new search returns a new set of images, a new set of relations.
Margolis analyzed 16 “class pictures” depicting classrooms and school life of
children in the USA, dating from 1895 to 1945, “using techniques developed in
diverse fields including literary criticism, art theory and criticism, semiotics, decon-
structionism, ethnography, and symbolic interaction” (p. 12). An effort was made to
find images that showed students of different racial and class backgrounds, and as
such the images included in the analysis were theoretically selected rather than sys-
tematically identified. Patterns in the digital record were noted, as part of a “hidden
curriculum” of schooling where certain images were taken and preserved, and others
were not. He found that the images in photographic archives, “valorize assimilation
models, a peaceful bucolic past, upward mobility, and order at the expense of cul-
tural diversity, domination and conflict” (p. 34). The article exemplifies an approach
to visual juxtaposition that includes representation and preservation as important
units of analysis in addition to paying close attention to the content and composition
of particular images.
For example, a set of two images appears on a single page of the article, depict-
ing two different views of African-American children in the early twentieth century
(Margolis, 1999, p. 21, Figures 6 and 7). The first image is captioned, “Four black
children in yard from the Detroit Publishing Collection. Created between 1890 and
1910. American Memory, Library of Congress” (p. 21, italics in original). The sec-
ond image, placed just below the first and of the same size, is captioned, “Spring
1939. Primary class in new school, Prairie Farms, Montgomery, Alabama. Marion
Post Wolcott, photographer. Still Picture Branch (NWDNS), National Archives”
(p. 21, italics in original). In the text, Margolis described the two photographs, and
the archives from which they originally came. He first discussed the search process
he undertook to find images of black children in school within the Detroit Photogra-
phy Collection in the national archives. While he found 300 images of schools and
classrooms, none of these included black children. He then thought to search using
another term, “black children”, and found half a dozen images. Unlike the school
 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 157

images he found in the database, the photograph titled “Four black children in yard”
was “a clear example of what Turner [1994] termed ‘contemptible collectibles,’
postcards produced for white consumers that conformed to certain racialized
stereotypes: black children were frequently photographed outside dressed in rags
and tatters,” “even though they may well have owned Sunday-go-to-meeting
clothes” (p. 20). The four young children in the photograph stand posed in a line,
each facing the photographer’s gaze. The social purpose of these images, as noted
by Margolis, was a stereotypical portrayal of black poverty, which reinforced racial
and economic segregation.
In contrast, the photo appearing directly beneath “Four black children in yard” is
described as showing:

African American students seated reading at a table with their African American tea-
cher standing over helping a student. The class is small with books and tables and
chairs instead of rows of student desks. Boys and girls seem to be working together,
perhaps reading. The choice of a new and apparently well-equipped but segregated
school creates an affirming vision of Black America as “separate but equal.” (p. 20)

While the second image is from a later time period, permitting the technical
advances that would benefit indoor photography, the image also stands in contrast to
the first because of its social role as part of the Farm Security Administration’s
depression-era efforts to boost American prosperity. Images of diligent black chil-
dren in school would represent “America’s strength and resiliency” (p. 20).
Margolis concluded his article with a call for further examination of archives for
images of children and schooling. He also noted that other visual material could be
collected, such as school yearbooks, websites, and bulletin boards, offering that:

These constitute different simulacra, image worlds manufactured by students, parents,

and school personnel. These images can be studied in much the same way [as historic
photographs in archives], examining both the actual occasions and intentions governing
the production of the photographs, the apparent symbolic meanings, and selection,
juxtaposition and arrangement for display. (p. 35, emphasis added)

Renovating educational identities

Images play a different role in Gulson’s Journal of Education Policy article, “Reno-
vating Educational Identities: Policy, Space and Urban Renewal” (2005). The work
is a post-structural, “spacialized policy analysis” of urban schooling in London. He
stated that this sort of “explicitly spatial” policy analysis, “takes note of elements
outside the school gates, part of the place in which policy is ‘done’, as well as inside
schools” (p. 143). As part of his ethnographic approach, he utilized Pink’s (2001)
processes for visual ethnography, with eight photographs taken by the author
included in the article. Further, he described the work as a “snapshot” study of the
site during a two-month period. While photographs were explicitly mentioned as
part of the data collected, the method of visual analysis was not stated. However,
intentionally each photograph is displayed in the article as part of a pair, thus
juxtaposing four sets of images.
The subtext of juxtaposition can be found throughout in the article, as the school
district studied was chosen in part due to its physical proximity to Canary Wharf, a
strategic redevelopment zone in London. Gulson discussed the “position” of the
158 A.S. Metcalfe

schools in relation to the aspirational spaces of development, creating a sense of

being adjacent and near, yet socially many layers removed. The photographs serve
to “place” the reader on the ground, at eye level, with the author. Further, at times
the photographs illustrate the “viewpoints” of the residents in the area, supporting
their interview statements. Using his sight to anticipate ours, the photographs look
over the landscape and become an integral part of the spatial analysis.
Contrast is central to the selection of images in the pairings throughout Gulson’s
article. The first juxtaposition includes the caption, “Looking toward Canary Wharf
from a Mondale Zone primary school; and Canary Wharf dwarfing the Mondale
area’s senior college” (p. 145). In the text, Gulson stated that this is the “view of the
Wharf” (p. 145). We see that the “tallest buildings in London,” owned by banks and
finance companies, are situated in Canary Wharf and “dwarf” the social housing and
schools in the Mondale area. Within each photo is a visual contrast of the small
buildings that make up the schools, against the backdrop of the towers owned by
the investment banks. The juxtapositions show that near or far, the financial towers
loom over the schools. Relative height is the main point of departure for the
analysis.
Later in the article, proximity is also shown to have “negative effects on some
Mondale residents’ quality of life” (p. 147). We begin to realize that we are “walk-
ing” with the author, as the paired images are linked by their proximity of subject,
but from different views or positions. The next figures show two views of a neigh-
borhood street, the towers in the background, and the “arterial road” that is the “bar-
rier between the two areas that reinforces the social and economic divide of wealth
and poverty” (p. 147). Here the internal contrast within each photo is still the Wharf
and the Mondale area, but the contrast between the two photos is the center and
periphery of the Mondale district. The elevated road is a physical barrier that pre-
vents one area from flowing into the other, but the lower aspect of the buildings in
Mondale creates the sense that the road is a fence, while those in the taller buildings
beyond are free to look out over it with unobstructed views. Again, the reader
assumes the stance and viewpoint of the residents of Mondale.
These visual positions are reflected in the interviews Gulson conducted. When
asked about the educational and employment opportunities of local youth who may
aspire to jobs in the Canary Wharf area, interview participants spoke of these as
“high level” positions that might be beyond the reach of many local students
(p. 153). The educational space was predicated and perforated by the urban sur-
roundings, finding home in metaphors for educational attainment and employment.
By including visual juxtapositions in the article, Gulson referenced these metaphors
and provided a sense of the imposing nature of the spatial contrasts of the local
landscape to the reader.

“James always hangs out here”

As yet another example of photographic juxtaposition, O Donoghue (2007) utilized
a contemporary approach to visual studies of the school by including students in a
participant-based research project where he and the children took photographs and
analyzed them together. His article, “‘James Always Hangs Out Here:’ Making
Space for Place in Studying Masculinities at School,” also appearing in Visual Stud-
ies, explored the ways in which boys make meaning of particular locations within
 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 159

and around their school, and the role these places had in identity formation. He was
interested in exploring the spatial culture of the school, noting that:

Not only are these spaces and places for performance and display, control and surveil-
lance, to be appropriated and reappropriated; but they are also places and spaces that
embody specific values, beliefs and traditions constructed, regulated and constituted
through various constituting forces. (p. 63)

O Donoghue gave each of the 17 male student participants a disposable camera

and notebook and asked them to go about the school recording and documenting
their relationships to particular locations. Contrast is seen in an aspect of the analysis
of the students’ images and text as a theme emerges of places that “reveal and con-
ceal.” Further, O Donoghue offered an extended reading of two images taken by
two different boys, Daniel and Jonathan. While he made the point that “Images are
not used to illustrate the student’s narrative,” the texts and images are described as
drawing “attention to ways in which performing masculinities in school constitutes
and are constituted by place itself” (p. 66).
The juxtaposition of the two boys’ images and text is handled sequentially in the
text, but the images and a caption below each appear on the same page of the article.
The top image, by Jonathan, shows an exterior corner of the school, and the caption
reads:

I took this photo because sometimes when people are messing and playing rough, they
normally stick them in the corner and start pushing them into it. It’s kind of an uncom-
fortable space. Like James hangs out and he is really rough and he always hangs out
here … It’s a hidden space kind of because it’s in a corner. None of the teachers walk
around in the corners (Jonathan, aged 10). (p. 67)

The image below it was taken by Daniel, showing a playground viewed from behind
a black pole. The image includes the following caption:

Well I took it because over there is a happy spot [Daniel points to the space right of
the black pole] because I don’t mind being over there … and I split it in two. Sad spot
one side and happy spot the other side: The side with the door is the happy side and
the side with the pencil is the sad side … well that’s because, that side I get teased at a
lot of the time, and the other side I don’t get teased at … its actually I don’t like that
side because I do get pushed around there still, and the other side I don’t get pushed
around there (Daniel, aged 11). (p. 67)

Both boys used their image-making in the project to inform the researcher about
ordinary places with emotional resonance for them. Compositionally, as O
Donoghue noted, the boys “point out” the places of meaning by framing the image
with the camera. Jonathan’s corner is the center of the image, with the corner of the
wall drawing a line down the center of the photo. This line is perfectly in place with
the black pole that divides the image taken by Daniel. The contrast is that the first
image shows a “hidden” place (a corner off the side of the school), while the second
shows one in plain view (the schoolyard), but in each the places have meanings
hidden from the casual observer. The boys’ textual descriptions provide an “anchor”
(Barthes, 1968) for the images, permitting another interpretation.
The second image described above speaks to our present concern of the studium
and punctum. The word “fuck” is roughly scratched into the pole in Daniel’s image,
160 A.S. Metcalfe

an aspect not described by the student but discussed at length by O Donoghue.

Daniel provided a strong image to the project; evocative and pungent. O Donoghue
was provoked to describe and ask:

The word ‘FUCK’ was found, framed and positioned as the main focal point to
communicate what? Resistance? Colonization? Association? Frustration? Is it about
provoking or being provoked? The very act of scratching ‘fuck’, a provocative word
within this context, from a hard surface requires effort and involvement and a desire to
alter to change, to subvert, to take control, to resist, to leave one’s mark, to re/shape.
Together with the text can we say that this image speaks to us of disconnectivity, and
outsidedness? Does it speak about silences? What is made invisible in this image?
(p. 69)

Daniel’s photography provided a powerful image from which O Donoghue analyzed

various layers of meaning, further articulated through the juxtaposition of image and
text.

Diversity without difference

In another example, Wells (2007) explored the “social aesthetic” of the school in her
Visual Studies article, “Diversity without Difference: Modeling ‘the Real’ in the
Social Aesthetic of a London Multicultural School.” Wells took a sociological and
visual reading of 15 examples of visual artifacts in a London school, which ranged
from inspirational posters of historical figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr. to self-portraits of the students done in the shape of a double-decker
bus and replete with cultural symbols representing the students’ ethnic heritage.
The photographs in the article were taken by the researcher as part of a lar-
ger ethnographic process of inquiry. Drawing upon social semiotics (Hodge &
Kress, 1988), Well’s article brings images into the forefront of the analysis of
the social context of the school. Through the sequencing of the photographs,
Wells leads the reader through the school, with textual description of the visual
and organizational culture. Unlike Gulson’s technique described above, Wells did
not intentionally pair photographs for analysis, although several pairings appear
on pages of the article. Rather, she found juxtapositions on the interior walls of
the school itself, in the form of multiple self-portraits attached to the same wall,
or the posters of influential figures appearing adjacent to local, “ordinary peo-
ple.” At times, these juxtapositions are within a single photograph, and at others
across several photographs.
Racialization and student identity construction were central themes in her analy-
sis. Wells noted the juxtaposition of imagery made by students and posters of histor-
ical (and historically racialized) figures, and the visual composition of images
throughout the school. In one section, she described how drawings of white children
are left uncolored (“white as paper” [p. 275]) while images of non-white children
were colored in. She stated:

both in children’s drawings and paintings and in the use of posters that use the style of
children’s drawings there is frequent recourse to representations of race in which Asian
and African descent is marked as a racialised identity through the use of colour and
European descent is marked as normative by the absence of colour. (p. 275)
 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 161

A figure simply titled “Self-portraits” (p. 274) shows a grouping of nearly 20

flower-shaped cutouts with hand-colored petals and a photograph of a young student
at the center of each. The attachment of the self-portraits to the interior hallway door
and window of the classroom has the effect of forming a simulacrum of the school.
Wells explained thusly:

The demarcated or bounded spaces within which children have been instructed to place
each sign or symbol on their “self-portrait” suggests that the child and their social and
cultural/political location are related but separate. The self portraits were produced by
all of the students at the same time, and the individual representation is displayed on a
template in a uniform style. The very production of the artefact means that the child
has an opportunity to reflect on the questions “Who am I?” and “Who am I in relation
to the collectives of family, nation and friends that these signs and symbols reference?”
(p. 274)

The juxtaposition of the self-portraits is then a representation of individuals as part

of the collective.
In another juxtaposition, we see the familiar shape of a red double-decker bus
(a referent for the city of London) used as the template for a different form of self-
portraiture. Students’ school photographs are placed at the door of the bus, and each
student has colored the windows with various symbols and drawings. In the selected
photograph, two self-portraits are shown, with the caption “Self-portraits, showing
the use of English, Jamaican and Portuguese flags” (p. 277). The text describes the
ways in which children in the school have used national flags as part of their visual
self-portraits:

While many of the black children attach to their display the English flag, either singu-
larly or in combination with other flags, only the white children make use of the Union
Jack. Many of the “self-portraits” display more than one flag, signifying a belonging to
or an identification with more than one national identity. (p. 277)

The self-portraits that Wells portrays in the article are a form of visual narrative
about identity, albeit in a highly scripted and peer-influenced environment. In some
ways, she uses the images to “speak” for the children, whose voices are not heard in
the study through interviews or other methods. She notes that while the self-portraits
are self-referential, they are displayed within a highly controlled and egalitarian
space of the school, which does not reflect the society outside. In this sense, the uni-
formly shaped school-based self-portraits are also in contrast to the larger social
order.

Theoretical and visual extensions

Each of the above authors has included visual juxtapositions in their analysis, but
Gulson’s (2005) article comes closest to an intentional side-by-side reading of the
selected images. Four images are reproduced here for further theoretical and visual
consideration. The first two were reproduced in the article as Figures 1 and 2 (p. 145).
The caption read, “Looking towards Canary Wharf from a Mondale zone primary
school; and Canary Wharf dwarfing the Mondale area’s senior college” (p. 145).
Gulson introduced the photographs in the following way:
162 A.S. Metcalfe

Figure 1. First juxtaposition from Gulson (2005, p. 145).

Canary Wharf has the tallest buildings in London, housing global banks such as HSBC
and Urbanmoney Finance Group, and, as can be seen in Figures 1 and 2, these physi-
cally dwarf the Mondale area. Figure 1 reveals the view of the Wharf from outside a
Mondale zone primary school, with social housing in the foreground. Figure 2 is taken
at the “border” of Mondale and Canary Wharf. Both photographs graphically illustrate
the overwhelming sense of imposition created by the disparate spatial scales of the
Mondale and Canary Wharf areas. (p. 145)

While Gulson noted that the two photos “graphically illustrate” the differences
between the Mondale and the Canary Wharf areas, the visual contrast is not strong.
Drawing upon Barthes’ notions of the studium and the punctum, we might say that
as these do “illustrate” – they fall into the category of images that chronicle social
aspects but do not provoke more than a passing interest (the studium). An opportu-
nity was lost in that the desired outcome, showing a contrast between the two areas,
which fits extremely well with the method of juxtaposition as the author realized,
was dulled because these two images do not contain enough contrast between them
to create the necessary punctum. Indeed the image on the left is blurry (a visual
mumble if we were to compare this to a participant interview), and the image on the
right seems to be merely a closer view of the first but lacking the same extent of the
rooftops of the Mondale district. What we are presented with is two views, but they
do not create a compelling third concept. The reader/seer has to work to put together
the pieces.
In a later juxtaposition in Gulson’s article (here Figure 2), we see Mondale and
Canary Wharf again in contrast but the images are now meant to show the neighbor-
hood divisions rather than their relative heights. Gulson’s caption read, “Social hous-
ing in south Mondale with Canary Wharf in the background. A main road forms a
physical division between Mondale and Canary Wharf” (p. 148).
Gulson stated that the two images are meant to be “read” in sequence, but the
juxtapositions between Mondale and Canary Wharf are contained within each
image, making the contrast less evident at first glance. Gulson described the scenes
thusly:
 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 163

Figure 2. Juxtaposition of two images from Gulson (2005, p. 148).

The contiguity of the ongoing Canary Wharf building developments to Mondale is

manifest in Figures 5 and 6. The social housing in the foreground of Figure 5 ends at
the arterial road in Figure 6. The Canary Wharf developments are significant back-
grounds in both photographs. In Figure 6 [the] arterial road is a barrier between the
two areas that reinforces the social and economic divide of wealth and poverty. As all
of the photographs and participant viewpoints exemplify, Canary Wharf is a constant
reminder of this divide, its late twentieth century facade dominating the vista of the
Mondale area. The consistently radical growth of Canary Wharf is juxtaposed with
incremental urban renewal in the Mondale area. The built environment is an allegorical
and real reproduction of societal inequality. (pp. 147–148)

Again, the interest in juxtaposition is explicitly stated, but the punctum-invoking

contrasts are buried within the images rather than between the two. Part of the issue
is with the size of the images in the publication, something that Gulson likely had
little control over in the production phase.
The image on the right of the second juxtaposition is actually a striking photo-
graph when examined in a larger size (Figure 3).
Gulson’s argument would have benefited from greater visibility of the con-
trast between the streets of Mondale that seem to exist at a subterranean level
and the glass and steel skyscrapers of the Wharf area that rise above the bridge
intersecting both the photograph and the two neighborhoods. This single image
might have sufficed, had it been juxtaposed with interview quotations or ethno-
graphic field notes.
We are not told if Gulson’s method of visual ethnography included an expli-
cit photo journal or set of images intended for contrast as part of the analysis.
Likely the article contains images taken as part of the research process that
were later analyzed along with the interview and observation data as part of the
larger ethnographic project. While the images presented do illustrate the context
of the study, they fall just short of being suitable for a deeper visual analysis
that would permit visual juxtaposition as well as a more complex reading of the
visual landscape of the two city zones in question. It is for this reason that fur-
ther work on visual analysis as part of the research process is required, so that
considerations can be made early in the planning stages of a given project as
164 A.S. Metcalfe

Figure 3. Photograph of overpass from Gulson’s field notes.

methods are selected and data is collected, all with the analysis in mind (as
described by Pauwels, 2010). Furthermore, significant obstacles are present in
the publication process for researchers who wish to present visual images, as
the final publication size may influence the “readability” of individual images
(Pauwels, 2012, p. 258). In addition, when researchers expect two or more
images to be seen on a single page, size and layout must be considered when
selecting images and in communicating with publishing staff.

Analytic extensions
When visual data are involved, the analysis often pulls from traditional qualitative
devices. The positivist traditions of the social sciences have perhaps influenced the
heavy use of content analysis, for example, and the centrality of questions of “how
many” when it comes to the use of visual data in educational research. A more qual-
itative analysis of visual data relies upon visual theory to some extent, offering sev-
eral methods by which images can be “read” as discursive text. Visual juxtaposition,
as exemplified above, utilizes a range of semiotic and discursive structures that
require further analytical work to fully understand their unique properties.
Taken together, the research presented above points to ways in which juxtaposi-
tion has been used in qualitative inquiry to provide greater understanding of a given
research topic. The photographs in these examples were extracted from an archive,
taken by the researchers, and taken by research participants – exemplifying the range
of data collection that is possible using this technique. Reflecting upon these four
articles, I noted that contrast is a strong theme that runs throughout the juxtaposi-
tions. However, I found contrast not only within the articles, but also between them.
These differences can be described as variations in analysis, which I categorize as
archival, spatial, multimodal, and intertextual.
Archival juxtaposition, seen in the Margolis article, not only calls into question
the nature of informational infrastructure, but also leverages it to provide a hypertex-
tual framework from which and upon which to place particular contrasted elements.
 International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 165

Rose (2007) sees curatorial work in a similar light, noting that critical museology
and information studies make evident the social ordering that is embedded within
databases and the physical layout of museums. According to Rose, “technologies of
display” (p. 184) can be brought into visual discourse analysis, helping to read
social semiotics in the ways that images are “framed” and “hung” in galleries; these
questions can also be posed in relation to archives and other cultural assemblages.
From Margolis, we saw that the search terms mattered, and “black children”
returned a different set of images from the database than attempts to find images of
black children in school. Further, the social ordering of these virtual and physical
repositories and embedded discourses are ripe for archaeological or genealogical
analysis, following Foucault (1969/2002).
Spatial juxtaposition, as exemplified by Gulson, provides a sensory mapping of
the physical place of inquiry, permitting the researcher to trade “sight-lines” with
participants and readers. In this sense, the researcher is almost a designer, a visual
interlocutor who “sees for” rather than “speaks for” others. We might slowly walk
with the researcher, following the methodology developed by Pink (2001, 2008), or
take a whirlwind tour snapshot by snapshot. Contrast can be used here, as by
Gulson, to see differences within particular places (such as the modest schools and
the looming towers of Canary Wharf), helping readers to imagine differences in
imaginary spaces (in his study, educational aspirations and future employment
opportunities). The work of critical cartographers could aid in the analysis of the
selective mappings of the physical world and the problematics of “shared vision.” In
addition, students of spatial juxtaposition could learn from artists like Mark Klett
who undertake methods such as geological “rephotography” (Klett et al., 1984) to
highlight changes in the physical world over time.
The discursive place between text and image, as shown by O Donoghue, could
be further explored through the notion of multimodality (Kress, 2010). In O Donog-
hue’s article, the images and texts of Jonathan and Daniel are juxtaposed, both in
relation to the modes of representation (i.e. Jonathan’s text and Jonathan’s photo) as
well as between the text/image pairs of the boys (i.e. Jonathan’s photo and Daniel’s
photo). The entire scope of juxtaposition would be served by greater attention to the
semiotic systems that help to make meaning, but this is particularly true for those
explorations between image and text. According to Kress, a mode “offers meaning-
laden means for making the meanings that we wish or need to make material or tan-
gible – ‘realizing’, ‘materializing’ meanings” (p. 114). Multimodality references the
operations of more than one mode within a social-semiotic context, such as a discur-
sive act that includes images and text. Linking, another social-semiotic device,
serves to join objects to objects and may be useful in better understanding the mean-
ing-making that occurs within juxtaposition.
Lastly, but not finally as this is by no means an exhaustive list, intertextual
aspects of juxtaposition were seen in the Wells article, and provide opportunities for
additional methods of analysis. Fairclough (1992) noted various types of
intertextuality, but the Wells article resembles the type described as “discourse repre-
sentation” where the discourses of another are represented or reported through the
primary narration. Visually, the children’s self-portraits she photographed “spoke”
for themselves, but through her framing and interpretation. This intertextuality
happened at the level of the photography (framing the image) and the analysis in the
text of the article (framing the interpretation). Juxtaposition happens within this con-
166 A.S. Metcalfe

text of multiple discourses, and may have some bearing on the complexity of images
used in such studies so as to provide for greater clarity of analysis.

Conclusion
Visual juxtaposition, like much of visual research methods, provides another tech-
nique to “defamiliarize the familiar” (O Donoghue, 2007, p. 70) in qualitative
research. In this paper, I presented four examples of educational research employing
visual juxtaposition, although none of the authors explicitly used this term. When
combined with a theoretical foundation that explores interactions between the mate-
rial and discursive elements of visual data, juxtaposition creates opportunities for
qualitative analysis that are not as readily apparent when individual images are con-
sidered. Theoretically, the method of visual juxtaposition draws upon visual theory
and meaning-making.
The work of Barthes and Baudrillard was offered as two examples of visual the-
orists who are relevant to the analysis of photographs and in particular, images in
contrast. Barthes provided a language and classification system by which we can
separate predictable from provocative images. The challenge for visual researchers
is to achieve poignancy, to move from the studium of our oversaturated and oversti-
mulated visual existence to the punctum of the decisive moment. If not accom-
plished through a single photograph, the punctum can be created through the
juxtaposition of two images or between image and text. Visual research methods
provide the opportunity for a level of aesthetic communication that supersedes
descriptive illustration.
The use of visual theory in qualitative research may provide a better understand-
ing of what a “thick, rich description” looks like, or could look like. In this article, I
have collected a set of educational research that provides a glimpse of how juxtapo-
sition has been utilized in educational research to date. The brief number of exam-
ples shows that visual juxtaposition covers a wide range of data collection methods
and analytic traditions. Considered in contrast to each other, I presented four analytic
extensions (archival, spatial, multimodal, and intertextual) to serve as initial points
of expansion for the method. It is hoped that this will serve as an initial framework
for more clearly articulated visual analyses in future educational research.

Notes on contributor
Amy Scott Metcalfe is an Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Department of
Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her work explores the intersec-
tions between governments, higher education institutions, intermediating organizations, and
the market, with particular attention towards the production cycles of research and researcher
identities. She is currently exploring the possibilities of visual research methods for critical
policy studies in education. She has recently published in the Review of Higher Education,
Journal of Higher Education, Higher Education, Critical Sociology, and the Canadian
Journal of Higher Education. She is currently a coordinating editor of Higher Education.

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