Vision and Verticality

Gary Bratchford is a Senior Lecturer of Photography and Associate Director of Creative Practice Research Academy at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. He is the president of the International Sociological Association’s Visual Sociology Research Committee (RC57) and Co Editor of Visual Studies Journal.Dennis Zuev is Professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau, China, and Senior Researcher at CIES-ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal. He is a cofounder (in 2006) and vice-president (research) of ISA Research Committee in Visual Sociology (2010–2018).

• Introduction – Vision & Verticality: A Visual Sociology of the Sky, Gary Bratchford and Dennis Zuev.- Section 1. Experimental and Experiential Approaches to Volume and Atmospheres.- 1. Open-weather – The Open-Weather Feminist Handbook: A Preamble.- 2. Of Carnal Gravity: A Three-voice Conversation, Julie Patarin-Jossec, Jean-François Clervoy and Jeanne More.- 3. Seeing in Verticality: From ‘Vertical Gaze’ to ‘Figuring Out’, Andrea Pavoni and Andrea Brighenti.- 4. Vertical Visualities, Experiences and Inequalities: A Conversation with Stephen Graham, Gary Bratchford, Dennis Zuev, and Stephen Graham.- Section 2. Sensing, Seeing, and Monitoring from Above.- 5. Repositioning Drone Sensing in Landscape Urbanism & Planning, Paul Cureton & Ole Jensen.- 6. Vocabularies of Drone Sensing,  Anna Jackman - 7. Viewing from Where? Satellite Imaging and the Politics of Space Technology: Unpacking Depravity’s Rainbow,  Lewis Bush.- 8. The Algorithmic Apparatus of Neocolonialism: Counter-Operational Practices and the Future of Aerial Surveillance, Anthony Downey.- Section 3: Assembling and Representing: Artistic Perspectives on Volume, Vertigo and Falling.- 9. Wassily Kandinsky and the Aerial Gaze: Re-considering the Punctual, Linear, and Planar Forces Inherent in the Politics of Visibility of Civil Drones, Francisco Klauser.- 10.  After Falling Away: Eeflections on a Vertiginous Art Exhibition, Davide Deriu.- 11. Towards a Typology of Imaginary Skyscrapers, Ana Aragão.- 12.  Higher Returns, David Kendall.- Section 4: Mapping Cultural Landscapes, Vertically.- 13. Epistemology of the ‘laje' – Notes From Favela Rooftops, Bianca Freire-Medeiros & Leo Name.- 14. Rio’s ‘Natural Born Monument:’ Visual Imaginaries of The Sugarloaf Mountain, Jorge De La Barre.- 15. Elemental Monsters: Using the Wind to Document Protests Against Wind Farms in Tinos, Greece, Adam Fish.- 16. Revitalization and Touristification: the Vertical Cultural Landscape of Dacha Community in Siberia, Artem Yakovlev and Dennis Zuev.

“Vision & Verticality is a recent entry in the Palgrave McMillan Social Visualities Series which they coedit, and which has received high praise by leaders in the field such as Douglas Harper. … By employing socio-visual thinking, Vision and Verticality attempts to convince social scientists closer to a sociology… . The book contains a wide variety of topics such as urban spaces, travel, leisure, politics, and environmental challenges. … I would add my more pragmatic praise as ‘useful’ and enlightening.” (Jerome Krase, Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography, Vol. 14 (3), May, 2024)