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32 Critical Soc. Pol'y 3 (2012)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy32 and id is 1 raw text is: Introduction Inequalities, images and insights for policy and research JANET FINK AND HELEN LOMAX The Open University, Milton Keynes Abstract Drawing upon a growing interest in the impact of visual culture and the use of visual data within the health and social sciences, the introduction to this interdisciplinary collection of papers examines what visual meth- odologies and visual 'evidence' can bring to the study of social inequali- ties. It sets out the specific contributions by authors in order to identify their different methodological approaches, theoretical interests and ana- lytical concerns and to explore the implications and possibilities of their visual methodologies for those researching and working in the policy arena. With a particular emphasis on the dialogues between context, text and image, the paper highlights the insights generated by the collection into the forms and experiences of inequality that have shaped and continue to shape societies, communities, families and individual lives. It also sug- gests how the visual might contribute to extending understanding of the ways social inequalities are imagined, constituted and reinforced. Key words context, interpretation, policy, social inequalities, visual methods The dominance of visual media in mass communications and the proliferation of images more generally are now taken-for-granted features of contemporary society. At the same time the production and dissemination of visual messages Corresponding author: Janet Fink, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. Email: j.fink@open.ac.uk Critical Social Policy © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0261018311425196 csp.sagepub.com 32(1) 3-10 OSAGE