'photography + (con) text' is pleased to announce a call for papers and visual submissions for a conference on 'Photography in Academic Research' to be hosted by UCL Museum and Heritage Studies, Institute of Archaeology, in collaboration with RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute) and Birkbeck, Department of Politics.

'photography + (con) text' was set up with the aim of promoting the collaboration and exchange between social researchers and practitioners who use photography in their research and practice. This conference comes together to provide a space of exchange, stimulating dialogue between social researchers and practitioners who engage with photography creatively and critically. This conference will serve as a platform for photography; encouraging its uses, analyses and practices in social research, expanding the possibilities of photographic practice beyond its current observational and illustrative uses within academia.

The character of research and practice with photography has changed significantly over the past decades, such that inquiries into the nature of different screen media, their interactivity, in art installations, their digitisation, the politics of their making, distribution and reception has emerged alongside more traditional perspectives and topics such as cultural memory and visual heritage. At the same time, cultural, technological and political shifts have led us to re-address the use of photography in academic research, challenging photography as an archaic practice to the moving image or an art practice outside an ideological or social platform.

We welcome submissions that discuss how through photography social researchers and practitioners play an important collaborative role in exploring people's social life and how photography is being used and reconfigured to enrich social research practices, dissemination of data and in enriching academic writing.

We welcome contributions from researchers, practitioners and artists working in all fields such as education, social research, the arts, museums, archives and anyone who is engaged with the analysis and the production of photography.Panels are not limited to the following themes but can be used to guide your submissions.

  1. Panels are not limited to the following themes but can be used to guide your submissions.
  • The still image in a world in movement
  • Photographs in a world of textual hegemony
  • The use of photographs in a social research environment and academic writing
  • Photographic ethnographies
  • The politics of visual evidence and the archive
  • Politics and photography
  • The social life of photographs 

Submissions:  Submissions are invited from but not limited to academics, researchers, educators, curators, artists, independent scholars and practitioners.Submissions may be made via e-mail attachment (Word documents or PDF preferred). Please include the following information with your submission:

  1. Title of your submission
  2. Name(s) of the author(s)
  3. Affiliation(s) of the author(s) if applicable
  4. E-mail address(s) of the author(s)
  5. Short Abstract (maximum 300 characters)
  6. Long Abstract (maximum 250 words)

Early submissions are greatly appreciated. Please send proposals or further enquiries to Barbara Knorpp (Anthropologist, UCL) via b.knorpp at ucl.ac.uk and Marcel Reyes-Cortez (Photographer, Researcher) via reyes.cortez at yahoo.com The call for panels and papers closes 05 June 2016. Chosen participants will be notified by the 17 June 2016.