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9 Image, social imaginary and

social representations
Angela Arruda

The early outlines of contemporary theories of the imaginary in the social sciences
date back to the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth
century (Wunenburger, 2003). Since then, and despite its late appearance in social
psychology, the notion of ‘imaginary’ has gained prominence in various disciplines
such as history (Duby, 1978; Le Goff, 1988/2005), psychoanalysis (Lacan, 1973),
anthropology (Durand, 1992), philosophy (Castoriadis, 1975; Taylor, 2004), and
sociology (Maffesoli, 1993). Le Goff (1988/2003), in his study of the Middle Ages
(published in English as The Medieval magination, 1985), further claims that the
‘history of imagination’ imaginaire in French has emerged as a new sub-discipline
for history.
The ‘imaginary’ is a complex notion. It refers to an adjective – such as ‘an
imaginary friend’ – as well as a noun – such as ‘an urban imaginary’. While being
well established in the humanities in France (besides the above mentioned, see also
Bachelard, 1949/2002; Morin, 1956/1985; Wunenburger, 2003, among others) and
Latin America1 (Carvalho, 1990; Canclini, 1997; Baeza, 2011; Silva, 2007, among
others), it is often translated into English as ’imagination’, which has increased its
opacity for the English-speaking reader.2
The imaginary may be considered as the mental activity of producing iconic or
linguistic images. The social imaginary, on the other hand, refers to a network of
significations, collectively shared, that each society makes use of to think about
itself (Castoriadis, 1975). In the social scientific literature the imaginary has been
variably defined (Barbier, 1994; Augras, 2000; Le Goff, 2005), and unlike social
representations theory, there is no single specific theory. Some authors consider it as
a set of myths (Durand, 1992), others emphasize the affect it may arouse (Baczko,
1991; Maffesoli, 1993), and others still focus on the representations which express
it (Le Goff, 2003) or the presence of memories in its composition (de Alba, 2007;
de Rosa, 2002; Banchs, Agudo and Astorga, 2007). Consequently, the imaginary

1 Discussions about national identity in Latin American countries often refer to the imaginary. The
arrival of colonizers initiated the creation of an imaginary ‘new world’, described as a paradise on
earth (O’Gorman, 1992; Souza, 1986). Each nation, as an imagined community (Anderson, 1983)
invented successive narratives about its origin, its heroes and glories (Thiesse, 1999), according to
the successive political/cultural national projects (Carvalho, 1990).
2 In English the translation of the noun into ‘imaginary’ sounds strange to many and therefore the
noun persists as ‘imagination’, which increases the confusion. The acceptance of imaginary as a
noun is recent; see the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (2004).

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Image, social imaginary and social representations 129

is easy to identify but difficult to define, and its multiple definitions reinforce its
vagueness.
The imaginary permeates reality but also includes what cannot be said in words.
As Geertz (1980) famously argued: ‘the real is as imagined as the imaginary’
(p. 136). It can both incorporate representations and provide elements to their
constitution. While imagination is considered as an individual figurative capacity,
the imaginary which interests us presently, that is, the social imaginary, may refer
to both the process of creating as well as the set of images, models and beliefs
individuals inherit from participation in society that related to a period of time (the
Middle Age imaginary: Duby, 1978; Le Goff, 1988), a situation (urban imaginaries:
Silva, 2007; Canclini, 1997), or society itself (the imaginary institution of a society:
Castoriadis, 1975).
Castoriadis (1975) has advanced the study of the imaginary. In his works, it refers
to image, that is, to form, but not only. According to him, the imaginary may be both
individual and collective. Two key concepts in his theory are the radical imaginary
and the social imaginary. The radical imaginary is a constant creative flow of
affects, desires and representations which yield the emergence of forms, figures
and symbols. It is the root of all creation. It constitutes the basis of the unconscious
and is a constituent of the psyche. The social imaginary, on the other hand, is
the continuous creation of social imaginary significations. These are imaginary
because their meaning is a creation, with no correspondence whatsoever to rational
or real elements (such as language, for example). They are social because they
are instituted and shared by an impersonal, anonymous collective: no individual
would be able to make them up. They form a web of significations carried on and
embodied by a given society (Castoriadis, 1997).
The imaginary appears in social representations research in multiple ways and at
multiple levels. It may be detected in different kinds of images and transpires under
different methodologies. It may be expressed by means of the images that a social
representation creates through the processes of anchoring and objectifying,3 which
associate imaging and imagination. On the one hand, this is an imaging process:
it produces an image that is not a copy of the object. On the other hand, to create
images is an exercise of imagination intended to find meaning for the unfamiliar
(Jodelet, 1984a). The production of meaning is thus a creative process: imaginative
solutions to the difficulties associated with understanding the unfamiliar. The social
imaginary may be one of the sources for this production, inasmuch as it provides
the background for anchoring the unfamiliar. The example of Columbus describing
the new lands to the king of Spain as a paradise on earth illustrates the influence

3 Anchoring and objectification are two important processes in the elaboration of a social represen-
tation. Anchoring is giving meaning to a new object by means of including it among the previous
stock of notions of a group/subject. This movement towards stabilization of an uncertain, unfamiliar
object corresponds to anchoring it to a firm territory. Both the object and this territory are modified
in this operation. Objectification is the process of giving concreteness to this object, selecting its
main features and recomposing them in a scheme or figure so that it gains a more accessible structure
and becomes tangible as an object. This may also happen by means of figures of speech, such as
metaphors, etc.
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130 conce p t ua l d ev e l op me nts

of a medieval imaginary still existing when he reaches America (Souza, 1986;

O’Gorman, 1992). At the same time, the social representation that results from this
process may become part of a previously existing social imaginary.
The imaging dimension in a social representation thus comprises the ensemble
of figurative elements and images (iconic, linguistic, etc.) existing within it, includ-
ing those intervening in the processes of elaboration of the social representation.
Moreover, the imaginary is also part of the dynamics of social representation,
whenever it is part of the movement of redefining (signification: anchoring) and of
redesigning (figuration: objectifying) the object. This changes the group’s/subject’s
previous stock of significations at the same time.
This chapter discusses the theory and studies that have related images with the
social imaginary and social representations. Firstly it reviews the theoretical rela-
tions between imaging, the imaginary and social representations theory. Secondly
it reviews social representations research that has included an explicit concern with
the imaginary. Finally it proposes some methodological techniques that may serve
for studying the imaginary and incorporating this focus in the investigation of social
representations.

The imaging dimension of social representations

The dimensions of social representations formulated by Moscovici in
1961 – attitude, information and field of representation – permeate the whole pro-
cess of elaboration of social representations. Fifty years later, however, they might
need some updating. Some of us prefer to think in terms of an affective dimension,
which goes beyond the evaluative compound in a social representation (Banchs,
1996; Arruda, 2003; Campos and Rouquette, 2003, among others). This interferes in
every step of such elaboration: the anchoring ground to be adopted, the elements to
compose the figurative scheme, and the structure of the central core. As for the field
of representation that includes the images and models articulated, encompassing
the network of meanings contained in a social representation, this is considered as
part of the imaging dimension of a social representation. A social representation is
a complex network of meanings intertwined and interrelated with images among
which some will be objectified. Figures thus belong in this network.
The imaging dimension has proven relevant in research undertaken by different
authors since the 1970s, and has also become the focus of some recent discus-
sions among social representations scholars (Arruda and de Alba, 2007; see also
Papers on Social Representations special issue on imaginary and social represen-
tations, 2014). The imaging dimension in social representations implies the social
imaginary as studied in sciences such as history, anthropology and sociology, as
previously noted. These sciences are interested in the relations between social struc-
tures and the imaginaries, that is, how imaginaries influence social conducts and
vice versa. Le Goff (1988)) explains the inextricable relation with representations
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Image, social imaginary and social representations 131

from a historical point of view: the lives of individuals and groups in society are not
limited to material, tangible realities. They include and are also explained by the
representations subjects have made about history, about their own place and the role
of society. This imaginary is part of such representations. And the history of the
imaginary is a territory of the history of representations. Imaging and representing
are the way to access certain imagination processes.

Figuration and production of meaning in social

representations
Figuration is an important part of the process of representing socially. It is
the process already described by Durkheim (1912/1968) in his analysis of totemism
and it is also seen as one of the ways of human thinking. It is a key support to make
sense of the unfamiliar, synthesizing it verbally or iconically. Wagner and Hayes
(2005) associate the process which gives concreteness to the abstract – objectifica-
tion – and the construction of metaphors. Objectification, in the movement to give
the unfamiliar a more precise format, to eliminate its vagueness, is a cut-and-paste
of those elements that the group/person can manage into a new object.
Consistent with Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Wagner and Hayes assume that a
source domain would provide the ground for objectifying the target domain – the
unfamiliar focus of interest. Objectification may come in the shape of a metaphor,
a scheme, or an iconic illustration of an unintelligible target domain. Examples of
objects studied by the social representations approach are the fertilization process
(Wagner, Elejabarrieta and Lahnsteiner, 1995), biotechnology and genetic engi-
neering (Wagner and Kronberger, 2001; Wagner, Kronberger and Seifert, 2002),
among others.
In the study of the social representations of the fertilization process, fertilization
assumed the sexual role metaphor: the sperm and the ovum are portrayed as the
active and passive actors of fertilization. Their activities and characteristics (the
target domain to be understood) are projected on to the sex-role stereotypically
active behaviour of men respectively to the passive behaviour of women (the source
domain in terms of which the target is understood) (Wagner and Kronberger,
2001). This metaphor enlightens such a complex process as fertilization, drawing
upon the current idea of sexual roles and gender asymmetry which is part of our
daily experience. To produce a metaphor is an exercise of imagination which (not
consciously) highlights certain parts of the object and recombines them into an
effective analogy.
For these authors, the mechanics of metaphor building is the process of construc-
tion of the social representation. The production of meaning is a dynamic operation
which comprises both anchoring and objectification, oriented by the choices (not
conscious) of the subjects. At the same time, image building may activate or con-
tribute to create something new, such as genetically modified food. The image of
the engineered tomato draws upon the experience and the visual information of
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132 conce p t ua l d ev e l op me nts

inoculation into the human body, such as in vaccination (Wagner and Kronberger,
2001).
For Moliner (1996), to objectify (see footnote 27 above) means to encourage
the production of images, because concrete objects are perceptible and thus repro-
ducible in the form of images. Lay thinking is based on analogy; the search for
similarity between objects. Imagery would be very important as it allows for more
immediate analogy, based on perceptive resemblance (ibid., p. 110). Moliner quotes
McLuhan to say that images condense and concentrate huge regions of experience
in a small surface. The elaboration of a mental image requires figurative traits
with which to coincide. Social representations are in the origin of visual images.
Likewise, social representations will determine how these visual images will be
interpreted and included in what Moliner calls social image: a sort of collective
opinion. The social representation is a process which, once finalized, has a social
image as its product.
For these authors, the object must be somehow synthesized and figurated. Imag-
ing processes function as a sort of illustrated editing of the object by individuals
and groups (Wagner and Hayes, 2005). For Wagner, its rewording comes out as
a metaphor, an analogy, which is at the same time an image of the object. For
Moliner, the process happens thanks to similarities between aspects of the object
and figurative traits of perceptible objects. Perception, then, is a main resource in
the elaboration processes of social representations, according to this author. Wagner
deals with verbal or visual metaphors, and, therefore, with analogy as well, but the
symbolic dimension of social representations is more developed in his work. Both
authors indicate how figuration (iconic or verbal) is at the core of the dynamics of
social representations building.
Both refer to similarities and dynamics, but with different approaches to the
metamorphosis of a new object. Both give credit to experience as part of the
ground in which the inspiration for processing the new will be found. For Wagner
and Hayes (2005, p. 205), this is not an analytical process. There is no investigation
of the ‘suitability’ of the attributes of an object in a categorization. Instead, the
available concepts and their features apply to the new. The result comes up before
any analysis takes place. Moliner refers to the filliation of social image (the result
of the representational process) to visual image, and reminds us that the image
touches us because it recalls previous perceptive experiences. The relevance of
perception gives his argument a stronger cognitive perspective.
These authors deal with the weaving of images in the network of meanings that
constitute the social representation. In both cases, some cognitive work is due in
this elaboration, with more or less use of imagination. Either way, it appears that
the gestalt of the object and of the ground or domain it will take root in is relevant
for the success of this operation, even though Moliner insists on the similarity of
figurative traits. Let us consider that the movement of finding the coincidences
or similarities between the novelty and the familiar, be it a conscious effort or a
spontaneous movement, is dealing not only with iconic or linguistic images, but
also with social configurations at the same time. For example, a woman of the rural
area of Brazil answering a question on mental health explained that, when we have
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Image, social imaginary and social representations 133

some ‘nerve problem’ we start to cry, we fall apart, just like what happens to our
home if the beams split open: the house falls down (Arruda, 1993). This is not
a metaphor simply because of the analogies nerves–beams and mental balance–
house. The social ingredient is also brought to the fore, as well as the affective
dimension: the house/home is the place where we should feel safe, protected. It
is a space of social relations – with others who live there and with society in
general, from which it hopefully gives us a certain distance. The social-affective
element may come from experience and contains a strong affective charge. The
imaginary of our individualistic society figures home as the sacred place of privacy
and quietness in contrast with the bustling day-to-day in public space. Analogies
thus carry an affective orientation; perhaps this is the dynamo for the metaphorical
expression, which may be a sort of unconscious association. Analogies serve to
make the unfamiliar familiar, and rely on the imaginary to achieve this.

The power of the imaginary and the affective dimension

An old social imaginary frequently functions as the source of inspiration
for anchoring and objectification processes, as we will see. This imaginary, as
Castoriadis would say, allows for the creation of new operative significations: ‘it is
operative in the practice and in the doing of the society considered as a meaning that
organizes human behaviour and social relations, independently of its existence ‘for
the consciousness’ of that society’ (Castoriadis, 1975 p. 141). Indeed, this imaginary
will perform its function from within the representation: once the meaning of the
novelty is established, it will orient behaviour accordingly. The literature about
slave liberation in the nineteenth century helped people understand the collective
fear and prejudice triggered by Afro-descendents in Brazil. From that moment on,
black and poor became synonymous with miserable and dangerous (Valladares,
2000). That was a first anchoring of those newly arrived to society. Today, in a
context of increasing urban violence and drugs commerce, the collective fear of
the ‘dangerous classes’ has shifted to the youth living in the favelas (Valladares,
2000). The success of the funk produced therein increased their visibility (Arruda
et al., 2010). At present, young males with modest traits are identified as funk fans
and suspected of selling drugs or stealing. They objectify danger, concentrating the
vagueness of fear into one specific character and one image. The old transversal
representation was updated by the arrival of a new character on the urban scene.
The treatment these young men receive from the rest of the population and from the
police confirms the successful anchoring and objectification, proving how effective
an imaginary can be (Arruda et al., 2010). In such cases, its power relies on the
affective dimension and underlies the affective reaction which produces rejection,
discrimination and violence.
The imaginary can be the dynamo of the social representation. Lively ideas,
suggestive words, image ideas, contain an explosive affective charge, which appeals
to imagination, and when the image appears, action follows (Moscovici, 1981a).
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134 conce p t ua l d ev e l op me nts

The relation of this image to beliefs, secular feelings and memories influences
this mobilizing effect. Baczko (1991) points out the power of the imaginary to
upheave crowds. It expresses the affective dimension, linked to deeply held beliefs,
values and expectations that drive human beings. It also shows the need for new
institutionalities to be crowned with figures that fix these institutions into a social
imaginary, making explicit how affect interferes with this process: if an ‘emotional
anchoring’ happens, then the venture will be successful. Incidentally, this is one
of the bases of propaganda. The importance of creating new imaginaries to back
up political-cultural projects is well known. Making sense is not only rational.
According to Castoriadis, man is not a rational animal; rationality is but a piece in
the immense realm of his madness.
The intensive use of lively images as in publicity (Barthes, 1957), politics and
social movements (Baczko, 1991) reaffirms the relation between the imaginary and
the affective dimension. Affect can be intensively mobilized by and can mobilize
images. This confirms the power images can exert.

The imaginary as knowledge

Knowledge is not constituted solely by reason. After studying the epis-
temology of science, Bachelard (1949/2002) embraced this perspective. Scientific
imagination was based on myths and archetypes, archaic images living in the
collective unconscious, which would inspire scientists in need of symbols to rep-
resent highly abstract entities such as the forces of physics. Abstract thought needs
to be supported by concrete thought – figuration, analogy, metaphors – in order to
elaborate knowledge. This also happens in the process of objectification, as previ-
ously described. What seems confused, unfamiliar and abstract gains concreteness
through figuration: verbal, iconic or other.
Wunenburger states: ‘The imaginary may thus appear as a pathway that allows
us to think there where knowledge is failing’ (2003, p. 70). He illustrates this:
the manifestations of natural phenomena were expressed by concrete characters,
identified by proper nouns – objectified. For the ancient coastal-dwelling Greeks,
the rainbow’s arc was most often seen spanning the distance between cloud and
sea, and so the goddess Iris was believed to replenish the rain clouds with water
from the sea. For some ancient poets, the rainbow itself was called ‘iris’. Iris would
originally be the personification of the rainbow.4
For Wunenburger, thinking, in contact with the spontaneous forces of life, first
produces metaphors. Facing such forces thus may produce ‘thought which justifies
the possibility of acting there where physical and biological laws do not reach’
(Moscovici, 1992, p. 307), thought which expands the possible world in order to
conceive a startling, excessive event or change. This means a way of transforming

4 Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, www.theoi.com/Pontios/Iris

.html
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Image, social imaginary and social representations 135

and representing things that escapes from the normal, a way which has its own
causal chain: magical thinking, which coexists with the so-called rational and
points out the existence of a kind of thought which pierces the boundary of the
impossible, bypassing the concern about separating perception and the imaginary.
Objectification brings about in lay knowledge the same transformation that hap-
pens in science: it gives fluidity a form that helps coping with the object. The
creation of a new knowledge draws upon memory and invention, whether in lay or
scientific imagination. It is a powerful cognitive device.

Social representations research with/on images

The following sections do not attempt to bring a state-of-the-art overview
but rather a brief overview of the work with images in the social representations
field. If, as Castoriadis (1975, 1997) claims, in order to exist everything must exist
in the imagination, then converting strangeness into familiarity may be considered
as an imagining operation. This brings to a specific symbolic universe a new
social imaginary signification, unknown until then. Hence social representations
contribute to the instituting process, which is part of the imaginary institution of
society. Finding meaning, or making sense, is a continuous human activity in the
pursuit of understanding the novel/renewing the old. Social representations have a
part to play here. In this sense, they are part of the imaginary institution of society,
as defined by Castoriadis (1975, 1997), part of a process of imagination. On the
other hand, the imaginary itself may also be part of the social representation, either
through the influence of a context to which those who represent something belong,
or as a provider of images, since it contains all the social imaginary significations
of a society. In this case, it will help the processes of anchoring and objectification.
Early work with images in the field of social representations confirmed two of
social representations theory’s assumptions: the imaging dimension of social rep-
resentations and the web of significations which constitutes a social representation.
This web was clearly expressed by the whole field of representation: the elaboration
of articulated images, models, values that compose a representation. It also related
to the general web of meanings – the magma – that characterize a culture and
society (Castoriadis, 1975).
Jodelet (1982) inaugurated systematic research with/on iconic images in the
social representations field. This first study was mainly based on research with
drawings produced by respondents, which analyzed participants’ construction of
meaning from the images given or produced. Following a critique against the
simplification produced by cognitivism about space, she went on to describe space
not only as physical and geographic but also as a place of human experience,
practices, attachment and identity: ‘space represents and is represented’ (ibid.,
p. 150). Representations of the city are social representations because they are
collectively shared and consensually reflect the significance that social, cultural and
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136 conce p t ua l d ev e l op me nts

historical characteristics of the city add to the geographic frame. Jodelet renewed
the concept and the methodology of ‘cognitive maps’ when she considered them as
social representations,5 calling them ‘mental maps’. In her original research with
Milgram, participants sketched the map of Paris, identified places on photos and
answered questions about the city. Paris boundaries were the first element they drew,
frequently depicted as the walls of the Farmers-General – the old city walls removed
in the nineteenth century – and often represented by the boulevard Périphérique.
The Seine was the second element that organized the sketch of the city, although
it was sketched as flowing down a straighter course. The third element was Ile de
la Cité and Notre Dame, confirming the relationship between the city’s history and
its representation, since the historical heart of the city coincides with the nucleus
of its representation (De Alba, 2011). We may conclude that these elements relate
to a city that lives in the imaginary of its residents: surrounded by its history (the
old city wall); divided into north and south by a river that becomes straighter than
the Seine; and proud of its admirable historical heart.
These aspects are real and imaginary at the same time. They are social imagi-
nary significations of Paris. Maps express a collective imaginary which modifies
experienced space, through the work of memory, into feelings of belonging and
pride, into a projection of desire. This indicates the inextricable relation between
‘reality’ and the imaginary and the ways in which mental maps expose this relation.
In drawings, spontaneity brings to the fore aspects which might not appear in verbal
communication: the presence of an iconic imagination.
De Rosa (1987, 1994) developed an extensive research programme on the social
representations of madness by children and teenagers. She asked them to draw a
mad person and to draw like a mad person. Three main categories concentrated
the images resulting from the drawings: (1) magical-fantastic representations –
madness as a creative opportunity (objectified as an artist, an eccentric) and as
monstrous, diabolical (a devil, a mutilated person); (2) deviance, ranging from
violence to the breaking of norms (a terrorist with a bomb, a person undressing
on the street); (3) medicalized representations (someone in a wheelchair, a person
subject to hallucinations).
These images were very similar to those portraying madness in past centuries:
‘They provided evidence of the figurative nucleus and archaic symbolic dimensions
inherent in madness’ (Duveen and De Rosa, 1992, p. 102). Apparently, these images
have remained in the collective imaginary throughout the last four or five centuries
and contradicted the verbal answers of the children and adolescents. These long-
lasting elements indicate the existence of a transversal representation (Arruda,
forthcoming) of madness, whose central core, designed by the imaginary, has
remained practically untouched.
5 Tollman’s definition of cognitive maps comes from his study of rats that run through a maze, which
led him to conclude that the animals elaborated ‘a tentative, cognitive-like map of the environ-
ment . . . indicating routes and paths and environmental relationships, which finally determines what
responses, if any, the animal will finally release’ (Tolman, 1948, p. 193). Cognitive maps are mental
representations of physical locations produced by men and animals. They convey the most salient
features identified by them.
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These initial works point to the interest of the images produced by participants
as a means to attain their social representations and show how deep the graphic
representation can go. Following Jodelet´s contribution, some authors have adopted
the social representations approach of space in order to study cities such as Mexico
(de Alba, 2002, 2004, 2007) and Vichy (Haas, 2002, 2004). These researchers
have associated memory, identity, affects and space. Symbols of both history and
modernity inhabit the cartographic imaginary of the city. Real and imaginary maps
intertwine to form the urban experience in which each inhabitant is layered, makes
decisions and operates a constantly changing space (de Alba, 2002). Omitting
places or the historical/political past appears either as a result of their assimilation
to the daily practice of the inhabitants (in Mexico), or as denial of a shameful past
(in Vichy). In both cases a selection and reassembling of characteristics creates
social imaginary significations in a web that institutes the city. This result produces
a new imaginary institution for each of them.
Other researches have followed different paths. The use of visual productions
such as photography, publicity and others, has also been explored. Transiting from
science to common sense is a significant development in Wagner’s work. With his
colleagues, he has studied what happens when new scientific facts such as biotech-
nology have consequences in our daily lives, as in the case of engineered food
(Wagner and Kronberger, 2001; Wagner, Kronberger and Seifert, 2002), objecti-
fied by the images of big tomatoes being inoculated by a person dressed in white.
He and his colleagues have contributed to elicit the social processes underlying
the elaboration of imaginary understandings and the dynamics of social repre-
sentations. He calls it the theory of symbolic coping, which values the power
of ‘everyday imaginations’. It gives ‘the concept of images and related beliefs a
dynamic character allowing [on one hand] everyday imaginations to be replaced by
popularized scientific understanding within a short time’ (Wagner, Kronberger and
Seifert, 2002, p. 341). On the other hand, it ‘allows for a backlash in the sense that
‘menacing imaginations’ might supersede popularized scientific accounts again,
should political controversy re-emerge’ (ibid.). Finally, this theory ‘makes a case
in favor of everyday imaginations as being functionally equivalent to scientifically
informed knowledge’ (ibid.). It sheds light into processes existing in other kinds of
social representations.
Wagner and collaborators have also studied relevant social issues with the help
of photos and images relating to the Muslim and Hindu conflict in India (Sen and
Wagner, 2005), proving the author’s concern about taking into account the interplay
of diverse forces which explore images in the hunt of the public´s support. This has
come to constitute a trend of social representations research related to cultural and
political facts, as in the next example.
During the institution of a newly occupied territory – Brazil in the sixteenth
century – the medieval imaginary still present in the colonizers’ minds (Holanda,
1994) helped to anchor that strange new world (Arruda, 1998). Historians confirmed
that the newly found land was easily compared to paradise on earth (Holanda, 1994).
This powerful image would institute the character of the noble savage two centuries
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later in Europe, a product of the political and cultural European context, thus
testifying to the creative force of the social imaginary. Transversal representations
may cross long periods and become part of an imaginary. In Brazil, exuberant wild
nature was the general image-idea used to objectify the new land. Updated each
time there was a change of the national project, the renewed representation had to
find a new anchoring. At present, the old transversal representation has lost some
of its strength. In recent research, wild nature was drawn/objectified in sketch maps
mainly in the Amazon forest, the farthest frontier of virgin forest, the last corner
of an untouched paradise (Arruda, 1998, 2007).
An example of the latest production with images is Moloney’s research (Moloney
and Walker, 2007) on how refugees and asylum seekers are portrayed by editorial
cartoons, considering the construction of identity as resourced by social represen-
tations. The cartooning characteristics reveal typification and prejudice hidden by
humour. However, the power to create identity lies not in the caricature itself, but
rather in the prescriptive power of representation when inequitable communicative
processes exist and the identity of the groups is imposed. Highlighting this asym-
metrical construction was the author’s concern and the aim of this research. The
images were analyzed and revealed the existence of the social imaginary significa-
tion of these groups in this society.
A further example also investigates social representations and identity, this time
in relation to racism. Howarth (2007, 2011) is interested in forms of resistance to
racism and changing dominant representations. In her research she uses a multi-
methodological approach with children in which visual methods proved to be very
useful, as they also allow researchers to study the participants’ image: analysis of a
television series and drawings are some of these methods. The most original aspect
of her work, however, is the use of workshops in which art (photography, painting,
weaving) is used as a means of subverting stereotypes, encouraging narrative and
self-reflection. These workshops provided an ideal context to explore the value and
limitations of visual methods, besides the social psychological benefit they could
bring to the children and adolescents who participated. Visual methods powerfully
demonstrate that identity is both restricted by and liberated by its visibility. Another
contribution of this programme of research, actually action research, is its multi-
sensorial approach as a possible stimulus for imagination and for the change of
social representations, as well as the inspiration for the use of similar methods in
other social representations/imaginary researches that would allow for the study of
images in another form than oral or graphic.
It is worth noting that social representations research generally shows the imagi-
nary as a backdrop. It is rarely conceptualized or supported by any specific reference
or author. A group of researchers undertook a series of studies on Latin American
imaginaries from 2001 to 2005 (Arruda and de Alba, 2007).6 Their common inter-
est was social thought regarding Latin American countries. They faced a double

6 This project was supported by the Laboratory of European Social Psychology/Maison de Sciences
de l’Homme. The Brazilian research was supported by FAPESP and Fundação Carlos Chagas.
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Image, social imaginary and social representations 139

challenge: working with images to achieve this goal, trying to find relations with
the imaginary. They used images produced by different sources, such as respon-
dents’ drawings, films, literature and history. Their idea was to work empirically
with the imaginaries as a dimension of the representational universe, using differ-
ent forms and methods: mental maps of Brazil (Arruda, 2007), Mexico (Guerrero,
2007) and the city of Mexico (de Alba, 2007); drawings of the school in Brazil
(Prado de Sousa, 2007), the imaginary conveyed by narratives of the inhabitants
of a Venezuelan rural community (Banchs, Agudo and Astorga, 2007); and by
the political polarization in Venezuela of graffiti, photos and slogans of Chavez’s
supporters, and the opposition produced of each other and of themselves (Lozada,
2007). The imaginary of Brazil in American and European films (Amancio, 2007),
and the imaginary of Brazil and Mexico in Bernano’s and Artaud’s writings were
also studied (Jodelet, 2007). Some of these studies tried to find points of contact
with Castoriadis’ philosophy, which considers that each nation has its own symbolic
universe, its own magma of social imaginary significations.

Some methods for researching social representations and

the imaginary
Most of the work undertaken in the social sciences is based on two lan-
guages: iconic and linguistic. Sound, film and photo research is still at an early stage.
Due to space limitations, only two kinds of production with iconic images related
to social representations and the imaginary will be discussed here: drawings/maps
and moving images.
The methodology of mental maps in social representations studies consists of
maps to be drawn by participants: maps about preferences, familiar places, eco-
nomic and cultural differences, among others, are drawn and explained by respon-
dents. In research about the city, the respondent’s urban experience is explored by
means of sketches of their itineraries and of known places in the city. Participants
may be asked to comment on photos of specific places. Identification questions are
also asked.
The search for more spontaneous answers, so as to allow for the expression of the
imaginary dimension, nevertheless, has its limitations. The lack of drawing skills
generally reduces the possibility of accurate expression. The explanation by the
respondent about what she/he intended to draw and why, which may be a narrative
about that production, is very important in order to avoid ‘over-interpretation’ by
the researcher.
The drawings go through a qualitative analysis to identify general aspects such
as their structure and organization. The next step is a detailed analysis of images
and answers. A protocol of analysis of the images is elaborated. The analysis may
include: (1) semiotic, hermeneutic and/or other approaches for images – grids of
analysis may be helpful; (2) discourse analysis software, content analysis for textual
answers; and (3) statistical analysis of precoded answers. This methodology can be
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140 conce p t ua l d ev e l op me nts

adapted to other kinds of drawings in social representations research. The challenge

of analyzing images should stimulate researchers to try different alternatives.
Studies using these methods have led to some conclusions. First, drawings allow
for a greater spontaneity and reveal more in-depth information when compared
to verbal answers. Second, the interest of diversified methodologies to study the
imaginary and social representations. Third, drawings contribute to the study of
the figurative aspect of social representations providing a sharper view of the field
of representation and of objectified elements. Fourth, drawings display traces of
archaic, utopian, mythical, fantastical and affective elements (Arruda and de Alba,
2007). The iconographic code is capable of revealing the most archaic dimensions
of social representations (De Rosa, 2011).
When it comes to moving images (film, soap opears, etc.), the choice to identify
the director, the public, and the characteristics of what will be studied comes before
the methodological choices. In order to see these productions in their context, it is
important to survey audience polls as well as critiques. These may influence the
reception and the development of the plot.
Television novels with many chapters may be studied as a whole or for a specific
period (number of months/chapters). In any case the whole story should be known
by the researcher. The overall analysis should consider the main features of the
material: its objective, time and place, genre, plot, etc. The written script, technical,
dramatic and aesthetic resources should be observed, identifying different moments
and solutions in the material. These convey social imaginary significations.
The amount of material to consider and the level of detail in the analysis depend
on the researcher’s objective. This may determine universes of different extension
to be studied, as well as different densities of exploration: extensive or intensive.
The interest for specific aspects in a film, such as the social representations of
a female character, or the influence of an urban imaginary, will require different
choices. The same will happen if the goal is to study a television novel.
For an in-depth exploration, the scene can be the unit of analysis. That means
the filming technique/angle, the actors/characters, actions, affects and the sound-
track may be registered and categorized. The verbal material may go through a
content/discourse analysis. The images – visual context, body language, move-
ment, light, colours – and the soundtrack contribute to the intensity and tone of the
affective dimension.
In films and plays, scenes may be timed and analyzed one by one. For an
exhaustive work, the time of specific aspects may also be measured: the presence
of certain characters, or of two or more characters together, and so oon. This
multilayered analysis, however, risks scattering results and loosing sight of the
whole. The different foci of work must be put in relation by the researcher.
For a larger amount of material, the researcher may choose a more extensive
methodology. If she/he thinks a content analysis would help, it is advisable to (1)
go through part of the material and make synopses of sequences of scenes, list
characters and/or other item/s; and (2) find categories in this organized material
and apply them to the whole material. If the images are to be considered as such,
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the researcher will also have to find a way to choose them according to her/his
objective: the movement of sequences; the relation between action and soundtrack;
the rhythm of the piece studied; the interplay between certain characters.
There is no formula for working with images. Creativity and open-mindness will
be required from the researcher.

Conclusion
The imaginary is part of the imaging dimension of social representations
in different ways. Since imaging is a dimension of social representations and since
every social representation’s elaboration appeals to imagination in order to proceed
to anchor and objectify, creation is at play in this movement. This movement in
itself may lead to a cognitive polyphasia (see Arthi, Provencher and Wagner, 2012)
as another rationality is requested to fill in the blank in one’s knowledge. The blank
will disappear so as to let a social representation come true. Those two intertwined
processes appeal to procedures and images regardless of their strict pertinence to
the characteristics or to the organization of what is being represented. They embody
the dynamics of social representations, creating a new figure or scheme, be it visual
or linguistic. This could be, on the social psychological level, part of the instituting
process Castoriadis describes for a society as it comes to be part of a group’s stock
of ideas and practices.
The solid ground in which to anchor the novelty may be an imaginary – archaic,
futuristic, urban and so on. The process of constructing an image, giving the social
representation a figure, may, in turn, integrate an imaginary already existing. For
instance, the social representation of the city of Mexico finds in a contemporary
urban imaginary a category that helps to translate it (the metropolis with its traffic
jams, its violence, its charm), and at the same time embodies a specific urban
imaginary, that which belongs to the Mexican capital (with a glorious native past
under the city ground). These are close relations.
The ongoing research on social representations and images confirms some of the
premises of the theory’s epistemological project: the creative and dynamic aspect
of social representations is reinforced by the interplay with the imaginary, and
the coexistence of different rationalities imply the non-hierarchy among different
kinds of knowledge when it comes to interpret the unfamiliar. The imaginary as an
ensemble of ideas, representations and beliefs – a web of significations instituted by
an anonymous collective – constitutes a resource for creativity as it gives an answer
where none could be found otherwise. Therefore, in order to better understand
the process of elaboration of many social representations, identifying the presence
of an imaginary is requisite. It may require a good knowledge of the multiple
contexts of the person/group who represents – historical, political and situational
– so as to have access to the modes of inspiration for coping with the novel in that
group, contributing to the dialogue between experience and the unknown. There
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is probably more to say about imaginaries in our research than we think, but we
do not always find that link. The imaginary adds complexity to the elaboration of
a social representation. It is part of the dynamics of transversal representations in
interplay with other social representations: it makes explicit the resilience of old
beliefs as well as the influence of new technologies of communication, giving an
idea of the thought orientation of a group in certain situations and of the extension
of its symbolic alternatives, as some of the examples in this chapter have shown.
Memory and identity are two important liaisons that can bring these imaginaries
to participate in instituting a new social representation.
To conclude, the ongoing research in social representations shows a wide range
of interests, objects and methods for the use of images. As for the methods, I
hope this chapter has made a contribution, but such good research practice requires
continued development. In my view, it is time to gather the existing experience
in the field, and this chapter has aimed to advance such a contribution. It is also
the time for a discussion about the imaging dimension of social representations,
which puts social representations theory – and social psychology – in line with the
recognized and growing importance given to images in thinking, communication,
social influence, education, politics, consumerism, visual technologies and many
other domains of human activity.