Visual university studies since the Cold War: mapping journal articles published in Englishes from 1992 to 2023

Concerns have been raised about the dearth of methodological plurality and risk-taking in contemporary journal publications on higher education. This paper offers a counter-narrative by exploring the operationalisation of ‘the visual’ for the study of the university during significant transitions since the cessation of the Cold War. It is informed by a systematised critical review of 208 journal articles, which were published in Englishes from 1992 to 2023, positing ‘the visual’ as subject, method, methodology or mode of enquiry. Mapping by journal, author(s), date and the contexts studied, revealed growth across 54 countries. Initially produced within and about the Minority World (most prominently the USA), visual study has expanded to the Majority World (most prominently South Africa). Emerging trajectories and patterns are narrativised across the decades, with consideration of contexts, foci, topics, interests served, and methodological choices in the generation, collection and evocation of imagery. This review demonstrates the scope of Visual University Studies for exploring and experimenting with the temporal (social, cultural, political and spatial strife, and change) and the multimodal (analogue and digital sources, methods and spaces) to express, document, critique, reclaim and commemorate that which is elusive or hidden within representations of the university ecology.