ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates and discusses the potentials of including visuals in collaborative methodologies when inquiring into how groups and individuals make sense of the world. Visual expressions anchor meaning and facilitate dialogue. The inclusion of pictorial material has proved to be an extremely useful way to develop poststructuralist thinking technologies, to further expand understandings of the complexities of how communication continuously develop in the intersection between individual and co-produced sense-making. It has also been an effective helper in dialogues where people from different backgrounds collaborate and negotiate meaning, be it across nations, social groups, and/or educational settings. Working collaboratively with images produces a material that reveals to the participants and the researchers the strong effects of discourses on social and political life. ‘The Image Exercise’, developed by the author and presented in this chapter, is a productive and engaging way to inspire encounters of different ideas and discussions about how discourses and power are (re)produced in communication. The method mobilizes engagement to participate actively in the production of meaning among those who participate and it generates curiosity about what others think and feel. It connects individuals and creates an interest in the effects and affects related to differentiation.
