Abstract

We live in a visual age, one exemplified by the fact that nearly everyone carries a camera-equipped mobile phone wherever they go. People snap quotidian photographs and share them across myriad social media platforms. They use these images to document experiences and emotions, construct meaning and identities, and curate memories. Just about everyone is an amateur photographer—even social scientists. The conditions are ripe for research that leverages this taken-for-granted feature of everyday life. Yet, among those whose scholarship focuses on religion and spirituality in cities, very few employ visual methods in their work. This comes as a surprise given the rich visual character of the sacred found in its many symbolic, artistic, material, and embodied expressions. Our ambition is to stimulate visual research. Toward this end we offer an overview of visual social scientific approaches to religion and the city.