The paper presents the field of Visual Sociology as an approach that makes use of photographs, films, documentaries, videos, to capture and assess aspects of social life and social signals. It overviews some relevant works in the field, it deals with methodological and epistemological issues, by raising the question of the relation between the observer and the observed, and makes reference to some methods of analysis, such as those proposed by the Grounded Theory, and to some connected tools for automatic qualitative analysis, like NVivo. The relevance of visual sociology to the study of social signals lies in the fact that it can validly integrate the information, introducing a multi-modal approach in the analysis of social signals.

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Ex abrupto the little known and closed Yazidi community has become a symbol of the atrocities of the Islamic State against minorities and of the risk deriving from extremism. The strong impact of IS on the Yazidi and other communities in the Middle East – Christians and others - has also provoked a migration wave towards Europe. The A. has worked on field in Iraq and Iraqi-Kurdistan since 2012, and had researched on and with the Yazidi long before the IS, realizing studies and documentaries. She sustains that the roots of the crisis were apparent before the crisis and the physical-psychological effects on minorities are much deeper, as they mine the structure and the evolution of their communities. Yet, the inner resources of the Yazidi community and the new global scenario have created also opportunities. Migration of minorities is a crucial issue: although constant in the last decades, it is now seriously endangering the rich social composition of the region and the stability of the communities when they scatter in diasporas. Europe must help the Middle Eastern countries to protect their minorities as they are a fundamental element for the balance of power and for the social dynamics.

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