Anna Sparrman

Professor

In my research, theories of visual culture is combined with children, consumption, child culture and sexuality. I addresses how norms and values are enacted between children, adults, and the material world in children's everyday life practices.

Visual Studies

Theories of visual culture and visual studies provide the main umbrella concepts for my research. As a form of social and cultural theory, visual studies questions and analyzes taken for granted, everyday visual practices. My research asks questions such as: Who can look at whom and who is allowed to be seen?

The broad theoretical scope of visual studies brings together images, gaze, materiality, visualization, and the institutionalization of the visual in the everyday life of both humans and non-humans. A particular focus is on the ways in which norms and values are reproduced in and through the visual.

I research visual culture in combination with the topics of child culture, consumption, sexuality, materiality, children and childhood and visual research methods. I am especially interested in the ways in which these topics intertwine, entangle and cut against one another (see below).

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Sexuality

Upcoming book: Children, Sexuality and Visual Culture: Enacting the Pedophilic Gaze (Palgrave).

What do children know about sexuality? Do they know anything? What should they know? Recent research points out that even young children between six and twelve years old relate to the topic of sex and sexuality on an everyday basis. My interest in young children and sexuality concerns so-called "normal" sexuality. Theoretically, my research is part of Sexuality Studies, the research field which emphasizes social and cultural understandings of sexuality.

A key concept and research topic is pedophilication and the normalization of the pedophilic gaze. My key proposition is that the pedophilic gaze has become a norm, on the basis of which children’s and adults’ worlds are ordered and structured in practice. I focus on and unpack this topic in my forthcoming book: Children, Sexuality and Visual Culture: Enacting the Pedophilic Gaze (Palgrave).

Research articles

Sparrman, A. (2015). Seeing (with) the ‘sexy’ body: young children visual enactment of sexuality. In Emma Renold, Jessica Ringrose and Danielle Egan (Eds.), Children sexuality and the ‘sexualization’ of culture, pp. UK: Palgrave.

Sparrman, Anna (2014). Access and gatekeeping in researching children’s sexuality: Mess in ethics and methods. Sexuality & Culture, 18(2): 291-309.

Visual research methods

Visual methods have become more or less a research field in itself. Methodologically I work with (visual) ethnography, video recordings, photo-elicited focus group discussions, scrap books, children's drawings, visual analysis of images from all genres, GPS, and visualizations on Internet.

I am also interested in the productivity of research methods, that is, what methodological dilemmas can tell us about the topics we are researching. For example, what do our experiences in using ethnographic methods tell us about child culture or sexuality? This interest can be described as researching about research. Theoretically and methodologically my analytic work brings together visual culture with ideas from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Deleuze

Video lins — Technology is important when making visual ethnography Istock Photo

Little girl selling lemonade — Children as consumers and producers. Istock Photo

A doll in a backpack — The material child culture. Istock Photo

Research article by Anna sparrman — Sparrman, Anna, Samuelsson, Tobias, Lindgren, Anne-Li and David Cardell (2016). The ontological practices of child culture. Childhood, 23(2): 255-271. Sparrman, Anna (2014). Access and gatekeeping in researching children’s sexuality: Mess in ethics and methods. Sexuality & Culture, 18(2): 291-309.

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2020

2019

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Open invitation
Application deadline: April 1st

Social Psychology of Family Life

PhD Summer School 9. – 12. July 2019
(apologies for cross-posting)

The European Society of Family Relations (ESFR) and the PhD program Social Psychology of Everyday Life at Roskilde University offers a four-day international summer school from July 9th until July 12th, 2019.
The summer school will serve as framework for the exchange of ideas and experiences related to the different processes of a PhD project but first and foremost it will be a place to share and develop concepts, methodologies, and perspectives relevant to the field of family research.

Apply and see full program

Invited workshop conveners:

Professor, Dr. Tina Miller, Oxford Brookes University
Professor, Dr. Anna Sparrman, Tema Barn, Linköping University
Associate professor, Dr. Roy Moodley, University of Toronto

Keynotes by
Associate professor, Dr. Dorte Kousholt, DPU, Aarhus University
Professor, Dr. Charlotte Højholt, Roskilde University
Associate professor, Dr. Pernille Juhl, Roskilde University
Associate professor, Dr. Allan Westerling, Roskilde University

Local workshop conveners.
Associate professor, Dr. Rashmi Singla, Roskilde University
Associate professor, Dr. Pernille Juhl, Roskilde University
Associate professor, Dr. Allan Westerling, Roskilde University

Workshop Call - Global Girlhoods

From Imaginings to Embodied Experiences. 11-12th of April 2019. Department of Thematic Studies - Child Studies, Linköping University.

Bild på vuxen- och barnskor Foto: Istock

New book explores parenthood

What must a parent do, to be seen as a good parent? Which norms and values are linked to good parenthood? An anthology by researchers from Child Studies looks into these questions.