Using Participatory Visual Methods to Explore Multi-Local Living Arrangements - The Example of Work-Life Biographies and Reflexive Photography

Different Visual Methods

We used Prosser and Loxely (2008) as our theoretical reference point. The two identified various forms of visual data and their collection methods, including ‘found data’, ‘researcher-created data’ and ‘respondent-created data’. Looking first at ‘found data’, several spatial-related studies have used personal items such as old photo albums or calendars (e.g., Kowald & Axhausen, 2016) to support interviewees’ ability to reconstruct, for example, how and where they previously lived.

‘Researcher-created’ data is characterised by the researcher collecting or creating data and reflecting on it. For example, by taking photos of the same site at certain intervals, Siegmund (2020) was able to analyse neighbourhood development processes, while Vergara (2014) analysed the steady dissolution of neighbourhood communities.

Additional spatial-related studies have used a range of ‘respondent-created’ visual data collection methods. Examples are “mental maps” (Nadler, 2014), “mobility maps” (Weidinger, et al., 2019) or “emotion maps” (Merla & Nobels, 2019) where participants draw a map of specific places, associating them with subjective emotions. Respondent-generated visual material is seen to give researchers closer insights into interviewees’ lives from their own perspective (Oldrup & Carstensen, 2012), often functioning as ‘speech support’ (Merla & Nobels, 2019, p. 84).

Other methods create data that is partly researcher- and partly respondent-created. For example, “comic book-like sketches” have been used as a participatory element to rate the importance of multi-locality aspects (Lange, 2018). Further studies have used the “socio-spatial network game” (Merla & Nobels, 2019; Schier et al., 2015) during interviews, using such items as board game pieces or model animals to make it easier for interviewees to talk about residences, or important people in their lives.

We now briefly introduce the methods referenced in this paper – timeline-based methods and photography-based methods –, both of which produce respondent- and researcher-created data, though the former dominates.

Timeline-Based Methods

Up to now, timeline tools were applied in spatial-related studies during quantitative surveys to boost memory performance when studying, for example, mobility biographies where mobility tool ownerships or events such as relocations are collected (Beige & Axhausen, 2008; Schoenduwe, et al., 2015).

The use of timeline tools is also well-established in qualitative interviews (Bagnoli, 2009; Chen, 2018; Kolar, et al., 2015), albeit more in social and health research and rarely in spatial science or multi-locality studies (Gleich, 2020). Also termed “life history calendar” (Harris & Parisi, 2007), “take-home timeline” (Bremner, 2020), “(im)mobility biography” (Kieslinger, et al., 2020), “biographical mapping” (Diehl & Lindenthal, 2021; Schubring, et al., 2019) or “biographical chronology” (Gleich, 2020), they address one or more topics such as key events in participants’ lives, health status or relocations. The timelines are compiled mainly by the interviewees. Support material ranges from blank sheets of paper and a simple pen up to printed timelines, tapes or coloured cards (Kieslinger, et al., 2020).

Using timeline tools is especially seen to be useful when studying biography-related questions, because biographical research implies that study participants put specific events affecting their lives in relationship to each other (Rosenthal, 1993) – such as the birth of a child in family biographies, house moves in residential biographies or job changes in work biographies. Biographical research also investigates how past events have influenced past, present and future decisions (Schütze, 2008). The participants’ biographical narratives are always related to their temporal, spatial and social contexts (Jackson & Russel, 2010). Narratives refer to the expression and participant’s subjective meaning of the experienced events, but can also consist of reflective passages offering possible insight into the extent to which events might have developed differently if participants had made other decisions (Schütze, 2008).

Timeline tools are considered to have a positive impact on participants’ memories and on interview dynamics, providing them with support for their narratives, improving the mutual understanding of interviewer and participants and allowing participants to be more active in the research process (Schubring, et al., 2019). Furthermore, participants can take the role of experts in their narratives. Timelines help moderate the role differences between participants and interviewers, strengthening their rapport (Chen, 2018; Schubring, et al., 2019).

Problems may occur when interviewees have difficulties with temporal imagination or written language (Kolar, et al., 2015). Furthermore, interviewers and interviewees need to have sufficient time and be highly concentrated for a long period (Kieslinger, et al., 2020).

Photography-Based Methods

The four distinct photography interviewing methods in visual sociology are photo-elicitation, photo novella (aka photovoice), auto-driving, and reflexive photography (Dirksmeier, 2007a; Meo, 2010). In photo-elicitation, the interviewer uses specially taken photographs to get the interviewee to answer questions (Harper, 2000). The photo novella method, by contrast, is more about socio-political interventions than scientific investigation, with participants photographing their lifeworld over a longer period to visualise marginality (Dirksmeier, 2007a; Glaw et al., 2017). In auto-driving, the researcher photographs the interviewees in a situation that is discussed in the subsequent interview. These methods thus cover quite specific topics (Dirksmeier, 2007a).

Originally used in cross-cultural studies, reflexive photography combines interview and photography approaches to form a coherent methodology. Interviewees are asked to take photos on given topics and send them to the interviewers before the interview. In the interview, the photos are then used as a narrative impulse or starting mechanism (Dirksmeier, 2007b).

Reflexive photography is a way to quickly capture visual information in a technically simple manner (Dirksmeier, 2009). Using this method, the roles of the interviewee and the scientific observer are reversed (Amerson & Livingston, 2014), with the interviewee taking an active part (Eberth, 2018). Interviewees act as experts for their photos, sharing their intentions and interpretations and independently and subjectively selecting subjects (Amerson & Livingston, 2014; Schulze, 2007). They are stimulated to think visually and make reflective statements about their pictures (Dirksmeier, 2009). Moreover, the pictures provide insights into their perceptions (Amerson & Livingston, 2014), in our case helping researchers to understand multi-locals’ social and personal context (Latham, 2004) and giving them the opportunity to directly recognise significant places (Johnsen, et al., 2008). Therefore, the method is particularly well suited for spatially related questions (Dirksmeier, 2013). As feelings and thoughts can be visualised by this method (Glaw, et al., 2017), researchers thus gain direct insights into the living environment of multi-locals. The challenge for the researcher is to not over-interpret the interviewees' pictures. The actual interpretation of the images should be left to the interviewees (Krisch, 2002).

Visual methods for studying multi-locality should be further explored, as the literature review reveals major research gaps, especially with regard to the temporal and spatial dimensions of multi-locality. Furthermore, as studies on multi-locality have rarely used timeline-based and photography-based methods, there is a research gap regarding the pros and cons of using such within qualitative interviews.

Multi-Local Living in Stuttgart

The first study focuses on Stuttgart, as a higher share of multi-local employees can be expected in such a large city with international companies (ARL, 2021). Due to demographic change and a high number of jobs, employers are increasingly facing skills shortages (IHK Region Stuttgart, 2019) and are thus forced to recruit (inter-)nationally, leading to many multi-local employees.

The Stuttgart sample was selected using mailing lists of academic networks as well as posts in social media groups. Interviewees were people living and working in Stuttgart, with a further residence outside the region. In 2018 and 2019, 24 interviews lasting 80–120 minutes were conducted with multi-locals from knowledge-based sectors. They were between 23 and 52 years old (median age 31), 16 were male and eight female. Interviewees had lived multi-locally for between one and 13 years.

The focus of the Stuttgart case was to explore the past, present and planned living and working arrangements of multi-locals and the underlying decision-making processes. To stimulate and illustrate the participants’ narratives, timeline-based method work-life biographies was used during interviews. This method consists of a two-dimensional printed timeline, in which participants have to write down and explain subjectively meaningful events in their educational and employment phases in life (work biography) as well as places of residence (residential biography) during the interviews (see Figure 1).OPEN IN VIEWER

At the beginning of each interview, participants were given a red and a black pen and the timeline printed in the middle of an A3-sized, landscape-oriented sheet of paper. The interviewees were first asked by the interviewer to describe their work biography: “To start with I am interested in your work biography. Therefore, you have this timeline, which is going to serve as a memory aid during the interview. Please write down on the upper part your secondary and tertiary education, stating what you studied, as well as when and for which companies you have since worked. Please tell me why you chose these studies and jobs.” The interviewees were given up to 20 minutes to describe and write down with the red pen their educational and employment phases, after which the interviewer asked questions such as “Why did you choose this job?” to understand the underlying decisions.

Interviewees were then asked to write and describe their residential biographies: “I’m now interested in where you have lived so far. Please write it down below the timeline, stating where you have lived from birth on and why.” Depending on whether the interviewees felt comfortable and willing to talk, follow-up questions such as “Why did you move to this city?” or “Why did you choose this flat?” were posed to gain insights into participants’ perception.

Use of different-coloured pens to write down the biographies helped distinguish them visually. Interviewers did not specify which information was to be written down and did not interrupt the narratives, allowing interviewees to concentrate on their line of thought. Some interviewees asked questions, for example whether they should write down more information or whether the interviewer could read what they had written.

To ensure anonymity, interviewees were assigned made-up names. In the biographies presented, square brackets indicate anonymised information such as peoples’ or companies’ names and spatial units smaller than cities, e.g., city districts (see Figure 1). As complete anonymization would have made the biographies less meaningful, interviewees signed a privacy declaration allowing publication in such an anonymised way.

The interviewees’ visualisations of their work and residential biographies provided insights into their associations and meanings of events (Bagnoli, 2009). At the same time, the visualisations allowed a shared analysis and interpretation by both, interviewees, and interviewers (Kieslinger, et al., 2020), with a combination of thematic and visual analysis applied (Kolar, et al., 2015). In the thematic analysis, the narratives and contents of the work-life biographies with thematic elements common to the interviewees were examined. The visual analysis examined what interviewees had (not) visualised within the timelines and how they visualised events (Kieslinger, et al., 2020).

Multi-Local Living in Diepholz

Analyses have shown that rural areas are also greatly affected by multi-locality (ARL, 2021; Lange, 2018). Diepholz, a rural district in the northwest of Lower Saxony in Germany, was selected as a case study to explore work-related multi-local living arrangements.

As a district, Diepholz is characterised by a north-south divide, with its southern municipalities more rural (Landkreis Diepholz, 2018; Lange, 2018). However, commercial and industrial parks are also to be found in the Diepholz district (Lange, 2018), leading to the expectation that the internationally active companies predominantly employ multi-locals (Greinke, 2020).

Within the district, 15 multi-locals were recruited via an online survey sent out to 16 mainly industrial companies where, according to the mayor, multi-locals were expected to be employed. Most of the interviewees were in management or in higher-level positions (e.g., project leaders). 13 males and two females were interviewed, with each interview lasting 60–120 minutes. The youngest was 33, the oldest 64 (median age: 50) (Greinke, 2020). The multi-locals had lived in two or more places between 6 months and 16 years.

To encourage interviewees to reflect more deeply, reflexive photography was used. This involved the researcher phoning them up prior to the interview and asking them to send in three pictures of their everyday life at each of their residences (in total up to six photos) (Eberth, 2018; Greinke, 2020), capturing life there and not “in between”. No specifications were made with regard to picture contents. Taking their photos with a device of their choice, the multi-locals were asked to write down their impressions, reasons, and reflections for each photo (Dirksmeier, 2007b). In addition, the pictures were to be labelled with the date, time and location where they were taken. The photos were printed out and brought along to the interview appointments (Greinke, 2020). Interviews kicked off with the interviewees' pictures, with them being openly asked to explain “Why did you choose these photos?” (cf. Greinke, 2020). This was followed by questions about interviewees' multi-locality and their everyday life to explore their meaning-making processes. In addition, they were asked about their working life and multi-locality in the company. Furthermore, their civic involvement was discussed with their socio-demographic data and information on the municipality as background. There were few questions from the interviewees about the use of the photos and whether, for example, they had to be recent photos or whether older ones could also be used.

To ensure anonymity, specific information on the photos such as the license plate in Figure 2 was blacked out, as otherwise identities could by revealed via social media and the internet. In order not to violate the ethics of participatory visual research, the consent was also obtained to publish the photos, as complete anonymization would have changed the results or made them less informative.OPEN IN VIEWER

The photographs were then evaluated with the help of image interpretation (in accordance with Brake, 2009; Breckner, 2012; Schulze, 2007), allowing interviewers to leave the actual interpretation of the images to the photographer. In a first step, the contents of the images were described in detail (for example, landscape, people and objects). Characteristics and surprising features were noted. In addition, the perspective, (main) motifs, effects, statements and special features were analysed, with the focus put on the content (Schulze, 2007). Other effects (e.g. image composition, choice of colour, the incidence of light, etc.) were not further analysed.

Visualisations in the Biographies and Photos

Even though the interviewees were not given precise instructions on what to include in the biographies or what to photograph, common thematic elements were to be found.

The visual analysis of the timelines showed that all had in common that numbers, whole words (e.g., ‘Bachelor of Science’) or abbreviations (e.g., ‘B.Sc.‘) were used to describe the work and residential biographies. Aspects mentioned in work biographies varied from the dates of subjectively important events such as graduating from university, the names of places, up to positions and company names. Within the residential biographies, key dates, e.g., date of birth or relocations, as well as names of places, housing type (e.g., “two-room flat”) or the purpose of residence (e.g., “internship”) were mentioned. In both, written dates seemed to serve as landmarks and a memory aid orienting participants during interviews (Glasner & Van der Vaart, 2009). Interviewees also used lines and bars when writing down their biographies. Horizontal ones were used to highlight, for example, the time spent at one employer or one residence, whereas vertical ones denoted changes of jobs or residences. Also, signs like dots, circles, stars and hearts were used to highlight events or attachments to places or people. Daniela (see Figure 3) used stars to mark events such as her own birth or the start of a job. Similarly, she used arrows to denote stages in her biographies and words to describe these stages.OPEN IN VIEWER

Turning to the photographs, most of them were taken explicitly for the interviews, though some were older. Almost all photos were taken with a mobile phone or a digital camera (see Figures 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7). The framing is often stage-like, focusing on a certain situation or certain people and objects. Based on the image interpretation, photographs were sorted into one of four main categories (adapted from Dirksmeier, 2007a; Schulze, 2007): “Mobility,” “Social Relations,” “Working World” and “Living World” (Greinke, 2020) (see Figures 2 and 4). Similarities and differences between the pictures at the respective locations and the number of photographs in the categories were analysed.OPEN IN VIEWER

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Figure 5.

Pictures from the category “Working World” (original pictures from interviewees).

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Figure 6.

Pictures of the main residence (left) and secondary residence (right) (original anonymised pictures from interviewees).

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Figure 7.

Pictures from the category “Living World” (original pictures from interviewees).

New Insights into Multi-Local Living Through Visualisations

The biographies and photos led to new insights, especially time-related and spatial ones into the living and working arrangements of multi-locals as well as their place attachment.

Concerning new time-related insights, the thematic analysis of the biographies showed that they were especially useful for studying multi-locality over time, as past, present and also future living and working arrangements were to be found in the biographies. While writing, the interviewees described the underlying reasons for their decisions. For example, a 47-year-old male explained when and why his current multi-local living arrangement started: “[Writes on the timeline] We lived in Stuttgart for 3 years up to 2017. Then, we decided to move back closer to home, to Münsterland [continues writing]. For private reasons and, in the case of my wife, for professional reasons. And then I agreed at work that I would mainly work externally from the new residence [...] I will just write this down briefly.” In some biographies, ideas about the preferred future were also visualised: As seen in Figure 3, Daniela drew arrows in her residential biography extending beyond the end of the printed timeline and she explained “Every weekend, I fly to our main residence in Hamburg […]. I hope that it is limited in time [...]. I’m really annoyed by the commute; extremely ((laughs)). The first year I thought ‘Yay, this is working quite well’, but in the long run it’s ultra-exhausting […]. We want to have our centre of life here, because we see our future in Hamburg and not in Stuttgart. I feel comfortable in Hamburg and it’s the city of my heart.” These and other narratives underlined whether and why the participants planned their multi-local living to be temporary.

In the selection of the photographs, it was noticeable that many showed interviewees’ present situations. For example, a 39-year-old male said: “Actually, these pictures pretty much reflect my everyday life. This [picture], for example, is the flat here [...], my secondary residence. I spend most of my time in the office when I am here, and in the evenings, I go jogging, usually alongside the river”. In rare cases, past situations were used to explain multi-local living arrangements, as one 50-year-old male stated while showing the photo and describing his former profession (see Figure 5): “Before that, I was an operator. That meant I was out in the field in the oil and gas industry, as you can see here [points at the photo], for example, in the offshore sector in the North Sea”. All interviewees talked about their preferred working and living futures and some even represented it in photos. For example, some chose photos of their main residence (see Figure 6), making it clear in their narratives that this was their home and would always be so. Reasons given were that their families, partners or friends lived there, that they did not want to give them up, or that the main residence was the centre of their lives. Even though most photos showed present situations, the photos also encouraged people to talk about their ideas for the future.

Turning to spatial insights, most biographies included the places of past and current residences or employers as well as further spatial aspects such as the type of flat. Furthermore, it was particularly interesting to see whether and how the interviewees represented their multi-local living with the visual methods. Within the residential biographies, multi-locality was in some cases referred to in words, e.g., “main residence” and “secondary residence” – underlining living in two places, but also denoting a hierarchy. Others used “parallel”, as seen with Daniela in Figure 3: “Stuttgart, 2017 parallel HH [Hamburg]”. She also used parallel horizontal lines to denote living in two places at the same time. In particular, interviewees with two or more fixed residences at the same time mapped their multi-locality. By contrast, interviewees sleeping in a hotel or on a friend’s couch while working in Stuttgart did not map this multi-locality. Their narratives made clear that they did not see themselves as “living in several places”, but rather as “living in one place and working in another”.

Additionally, residential biographies can consist of different phases of mono-local and multi-local living. One 40-year-old male had lived at his parents’ house for his whole childhood and youth, but multi-locally several times since leaving school. He explained: “Born and raised in Darmstadt [points to the residential biography]. After that, I had a whole series of long-distance relationships. And during my community service in Hamburg, I continued to live in Darmstadt. If you look at it that way, I never noticed that I have always lived multi-locally.” These findings underline the spatial extent and fluidity of today’s residential biographies as well as the temporality of multi-locality.

The timelines also visualise that residential and work biographies are often interrelated, with workplace and residential changes often occurring simultaneously. Nevertheless, the narratives are important for understanding the motives behind changes of jobs and residence, for example, whether interviewees moved because of the job or chose the job because of where they (wanted to) live. Figure 1 revealed that Oliver’s studies and jobs coincided with relocations to the cities in question and he narrates: “I went to Dresden to study computer science […]. Then I spent a year doing research in the USA […]. I went back to Dresden, because I thought Dresden was very nice and I had my previous girlfriend there. So, I started looking for a job there [...]. In 2016, I saw the position in Stuttgart and that was exactly what I wanted to do and I moved here for it.”

The photos also gave new insights into spatial contexts, representing the multi-local living arrangements. Indeed, most interviewees took pictures at both residences. Nearly all began describing their lives with a picture of the main residence. For example, one 54-year-old male started the interview by saying: “Let’s perhaps start with the flat here. You can see it here from the side. This is where it was photographed from”. After that, most interviewees went on to describe their lives at the secondary residence. Interestingly, some of the photos of the different residences resembled each other. For example, some interviewees showed outside pictures of both residences (see Figure 6). However, the photos of the main residence tended to be more private, for example including pictures of babies, family and friends, or pets, whereas those of the secondary residence generally referred to work (see Figure 5). The selection of photos thus underlined a hierarchy of residences. Furthermore, the photos represented the spatial organisation of the multi-local living arrangements, with some pictures showing for example “connecting elements” such as cars or mobile phones (see Figure 2).

The photos and biographies also underlined new insights into multi-locals’ attachment to their places of residence, which varied from social contacts, specific infrastructures and landscape features to property ownership. The biographies emphasised place attachments and multi-local decisions, with signs like a heart denoting a partner or family members living at one of the residences, making it clear that multi-locality does not only affect the multi-locals themselves. Other interviewees underlined their attachment by writing such words as “boyfriend” or “own house” – the latter denoting a property-related attachment. Some biographies and narratives revealed that interviewees had lived their whole lives or several years within the same city or had worked for the same company for several years, underlining a biography-related attachment. Furthermore, biographies can underline an attachment to several places. As mentioned before, Daniela would like to end the multi-locality and just live in Hamburg. But her work biography showed that she had worked for the same employer since graduating, to whom she was strongly attached. She cannot imagine leaving her company yet and explains “I have a very good job in Stuttgart and wouldn’t want to give it up. That’s why I still live in Stuttgart during the week.”

Turning to the reflexive photography, the attachment became clear through the selection of photos: most interviewees took pictures of their main and secondary residence (see Figure 6). However, looking at the number of photos, it was obvious that they took more photos with friends at their main residence than at their secondary one. The interviewees took no pictures of their families at their secondary residence but more of their work (environment). This confirmed the stronger emotional and place attachment to the main residence and to the family and friends there, whereas a weaker attachment to the second residence was observed. The descriptions provided by the interviewees underlined this, with most of them saying they had taken pictures to show where and how they lived. For instance, one 41-year-old male explained while looking at a picture of his hometown: “You have your family and friends here. For me, this is my home”. Furthermore, the photos showed circumstances representing partner- or family life, making it clear that multi-locality not only affected the people themselves, but also their families, partners and friends living at one of the places of residence where the multi-locals are present and absent for prolonged periods.

The Pros and Cons of Using Visual Methods

Using visual methods during qualitative interviews represented a clear added value in studying multi-locality. While the previous chapter dealt with newly generated content, we will now explore the question of what methodological pros and cons emerged when using visual methods during interviews.

Challenges included the time needed for the interviews due to the visual methods, as up to 2 hours had to be planned. In terms of the biographies, there also had to be enough space, preferably at a sufficiently large table, to fill in the timelines.

Nevertheless, handing out the timeline tools and photos at the beginning of the interviews created a suitable introduction as it aroused interviewees’ interest and attention. Even so, with regard to the timeline tools, some interviewees said things like “((laughing)) I’m no good at that sort of thing”, all interviewees filled out the timelines in a more or less detailed manner. Interviewees seemed less constrained or inhibited due to the visual methods. In most cases, they immediately started describing what they saw or wrote down and why. Interviewers did not need to ask that many questions, as interviewees mostly gave detailed answers supported by the visual methods. Memories were jogged by filling the timelines or looking at the photos. Furthermore, the material was available after the interviews, helping the interviewers interpret the data.

Interviewees were able to describe events within their biographies chronologically or to jump back and forth between photographs or parts of the biographies to contextualise events. For example, one 27-year-old male explained where he felt at home pointing to several events: “Even though I was born in Saxony-Anhalt and spent the first 3 years of my life there [points to the residential biography], my home is… You can see it here [points to the residential biography] quite nicely: I spent the longest time in Erlangen. It is simply home for me.” Interviewees could also use the photos to complement their narratives with such statements as “as you can see here” or “as is exactly shown in this photo”.

Using the visual methods also made it easier for interviewers to follow the narratives as they were able to point to specific details in biographies or photos and ask more detailed questions, such as “You said you didn’t feel good at that company. Why not?“.

With the help of the visual methods, interviewees acted as experts on their own lives, reflecting on their own experiences. Writing down the biographies made them aware of how, for example, past decisions had influenced their present situation. Some mentioned that they had never thought, for example, about the relationship between residential and work biographies. The photos also encouraged them to establish mental links between the various places and stages of their lives.

Visualising specific events and situations in the biographies and photos significantly enhanced discussions of sensitive and private topics. Interviewees seemed to speak more openly, while interviewers were less inhibited about asking personal questions. In some cases, very emotional statements and moments came to light such as tearful interview passages, photographs of babies or children in the pool or nostalgic statements made while inserting past flats or jobs into biographies. When negative emotions became too strong, interviewers were able to shift to other topics.