Rachel Dorothy Tanur (1958-2002) was not trained as a social scientist, but she cared deeply about people and their lives and was an acute observer of living conditions and interactions. Her photographs represent the true spirit of ethnography. They express a direct, personal, and emotional engagement with the lives of others while also conveying enough intellectual distance to be analytic.Their play between intimacy and commentary defines the photographer as someone bound to her subject, yet concerned with the larger implications of the images she records. Ms. Tanur understands how something as simple as a street sign, a bus, or a pile of pottery is linked to an interconnected world of social, economic, political and cultural forces that define objects both as just what they are and also so much more.
Ms. Tanur’s eye is that of the artist and the social scientist. Her images are beautiful in the tradition of documentary photography. Thus, the Rachel Tanur Memorial Prize for Visual Sociology is open worldwide to undergraduate and graduate students in any of the social science disciplines.
First prize offers a cash prize, two years of honorary Board Membership to the International Sociological Association (ISA) Visual Sociology Research Committee, and publication of the winning essay as a “picture talk feature” with an associated DOI in the journal Visual Studies.
Second and third place awardees also receive a cash prize and all prize winners will be awarded student membership to the ISA and the Visual Sociology Research Committee. The prize is awarded biennially.
The Visual Sociology Research Committee will host a prize ceremony. The winner of the first place prize will be invited to attend the ISA Forum and the ceremony, with travel expenses paid by the Rachel Tanur Memorial Prize.
Eligbility
Students must be enrolled in a degree-bearing program (pursuing a BA, MA, or PhD degree) at the time of application and must be open to incorporating visual media into their scholarship.