We are constantly being challenged about our blindness to the things around us, or our inability to envisage solutions. Visual and filmic sociology brings together approaches to learning how to see. Yes, there's a lot to see and film. Today, many sociologists use a camera or a camcorder to capture the changes in our world, taking up sociological issues. This new way of working is an important step in the sharing of knowledge. The AFS congress is an opportunity to debate questions of writing through images and sound, on objects or themes in which invisibility plays a predominant role. What images do we construct to make people see? What kind of writing is needed to see and understand? What is left in or out of focus? What role does editing play in reinforcing the eloquence of images? What are the consequences, in our relationship to knowledge, of the sociologist's sorties into uncomfortable areas?

For the daily news confronts us with the problems of international conflicts, population displacements, migrations, the ecological problems that are often linked to them, and generational shifts in perspective. Art historian Daniel Arasse provoked us with his observation that we are incapable of looking at a work of art and grasping its meaning. He showed how this is the result of a long apprenticeship.