To date, the literature on ‘visual analysis’ is restricted to systematic techniques to interrogate found images-as-data, rather than those generated by research participants and complemented with verbal description, as in the case of ‘photo-ethnography’ projects. In this presentation we put forward a tripartite method of analysis that seeks to retain the generative/ performative properties of photography in generating rich narratives of space and identity whilst recognizing that an investigation of what the image depicts is also important if we are to claim that interviewing with images – photo-ethnography – is anything more than an aestheticized semi-structured interview.

More specifically, and based on Harriet’s research, we are interested in these issues in a profession where image and identity are particularly foregrounded in the generation of occupational and organizational reputation – hairdressing. This poorly researched area of work also interests us because it is one where individual employees have very little autonomy over their working spaces which, in large part, are also simultaneously public and private. Consequently, given our interest in exploring the role of the spatial-visual-material nexus in identity performance at work, hairdressers provide an especially good opportunity for study.

The role of the images as actors in the participants’ identity narratives are discussed – and we also put forward the proposition that through the materiality of the photographs as objects, participants constructed visual ‘identity-scapes’, making unprompted associations between images and arranging them spatially in talking through ‘who they were’ at work.

Dr Sam Warren (School of Management, University of Surrey) and Miss Harriet Shortt (University of Bath)