Imaging Texas Gun Culture: A Photo Essay

Abstract

<p>This chapter’s presentation of 17 full-color photographs reveals both formal and informal imaginaries of Texas gun culture, providing a visual context for the various subject matters discussed throughout the volume. This set of images was collected during fieldwork in Texas in 2018–2019 during the research project on Campus Carry conducted by the John Morton Center for North American Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. As such, it encompasses the “before and after” of the implementation of the SB 11 legislation, providing an alternative interpretative lens onto the conceptualization and experiencing of firearms in the campus space, as well as related aspects of gun culture in the Lone Star State. These visual materials offer a broader and more complex understanding of the ways in which people take a stand on policymaking, while also giving a useful tool to penetrate official discourses and historical imaginaries that might not be revealed otherwise. This chapter provides an important linkage between theoretical discussion and an experiential component, which focuses on both the research subjects’ and scholars’ spatial maneuvering within and outside of academia and other areas of Texas.<br></p>