Visual ethnography and racial theory: Family photographs as archives of interracial intimacies

I propose a model for employing photograph-elicitation interviews in longitudinal ethnographic research on race and intimacy by drawing upon research that I conducted among British interracial families between 1995 and 2003. I evaluate my use of family photographs in photo-elicitation interviews as a methodological tool, a source of primary data and as evidence for theory. I used photo-interviews as a collaborative methodological tool to clarify and challenge theories that I had developed to explain how white birth mothers of African-descent children negotiate their racial profiles in public and private arenas. I analyse a case study of one transracial mother who strategically employed family photographs to project respectable presentations of her interracial familial life.