Using photographs in interpreting cultural and symbolic meaning: A reflection on photographs of the Korean Association for Government Accounting
本文探讨如何利用照片作为研究方法，深入理解会计从业者的日常生活，并以韩国政府会计协会的照片为例，分析实物如何传递象征信息。
Building on a sociological tradition of using photographs as a methodology, we suggest that accounting researchers more fully utilize photographs to understand accounting actors’ everyday lives. While most accounting studies have focused on the photographic imagery in published documents, such as corporate annual reports, a few authors found photographs can highlight how physical artefacts can deliver symbolic messages. We explored photographs drawn from the Korean Association for Government Accounting (KAGA) to illustrate how social actors used physical artefacts. To guide our analysis, we relied on Bourdieu’s theorization of how physical artefacts reflect forms of capital. We argue that the use of photographs as a methodology provides a deeper insight into the cultural and social meanings of physical artefacts as a form of language open to multiple interpretations by both the author and the reader.