The article “Professional Vision” tries to find out the discursive procedures used by people belonging to a certain profession to shape events to their desired ends in a professional manner. This shaping method creates objects of knowledge like theories artifacts and expert knowledge that provide the foundation on which their perception is based. This paper analyzes the methods used by the members of a professional community to construct and argue a specific theory or actions. This article examines two professions archeological field excavations and legal arguments as presented by lawyers.
The article explores three specific practices, coding schemes which are used to convert the available material into specific sets of information these coding schemes are used to categorize material and transform it into information. The second is highlighting which is used to make certain things stand out perceptibly, this is done by marking these words in a specific way. Creation and expression of material representation are done by applying a kind of professional vision that projects the occurrence in a more social context. The author gives the example of the Rodney King incident and how his video which was taken by a bystander from an apartment was used by the defense and the prosecuting lawyers in different contexts to prove their points in the first trial. Since the video was the only evidence it was used by both sides to build a certain perception and this was the reason when the policemen were acquitted. According to the writer, it all depends on how an event took on a video that might appear straightforward is not usually that clear, rather even that can be used to develop a certain perception that might not reflect the reality. According to the author, the task of any profession is to try to influence events in society within the working limits of one’s profession. For example, archeologists try to pinpoint the more important events and occurrences than the lesser important ones. This ability to take the relevant information from data is done within a certain framework, which is derived from social and cultural perceptions. Different professions have their impact on society in a different manner. Professional vision is dependent on a person’s perspective is not distributed evenly and is within different social entities. This vision is not a mental process, rather it is brought about these visions are deployed within certain parameters. All the different processes like coding and highlighting are interlinked and together form a picture that is much bigger than the different parts put together. The practices have to be learned but as in the case of archeology and the legal profession, the learning organization and the structure are different. For instance, a jury being instructed by the lawyers is different from an archeologist teaching students at a university or even in the field. The difference in these is visible because the jury is a passive listener compared to the students who are explained things and have a more interactive approach with Anne there were interdependencies in both cases but the nature of these interdependencies was different.
This article shows that human activity takes place in an environment that is not very clear, rather the perceptions vary depending on different social understanding and learning. Therefore in the coding process when data is transformed and then again when it is highlighted in such a way that certain aspects become more prominent, and finally when it is presented then it appears as a certain image which may be different from reality or may vary from one group of individuals to another.