Visualizing Structure: Reading Surfaces of Social Life

Abstract

This paper reports on the use of aerial photographs to study the social structure of a dairy farm neighborhood in St. Lawrence County, New York. The paper compares information from aerial photographs of farmsteads and farm work to data gathered in a sociological survey. I examine how the visual data compares to other sociological information; how photographs, in this research, amplify, supplement, or contextualize nonvisual data.