Improving the quality of the image would help to make a stronger case around how scientific knowledge practices represent toxicity or toxic places.
The caption does a good job of providing information on citizens' autodidactic practices and the multiple bureaucratic, technical, and political barriers they have to overcome to make their case. However, I would like to know more about the map itself, about the document in which it was buried, what spatial and environmental conclusions can be drawn from this representation.
I also think it would be pertinent to explore and perhaps forefront the idea of the “language” of monitoring (I'm not sure if it is or ought to be the same language of reparation). This element of the title and the caption is a bit uncharted.
Also, what do you mean by ‘esoteric.’ It seems to me that by describing science that way, the author emphasizes even more the so-called obscure, complicated, and expert character of scientific knowledge.
I would also be attentive to the language used to describe the interlocutors. Although they are portrayed as active agents, they still seem to be inexperienced, ignorant —their expertise always running behind scientific practices.
I believe there is a leap from acquiring (cartographic) knowledge to remediation requests and access to political stakeholders. Maybe remediation needs its own visualization?
Measuring, mapping and monitoring toxic places is a highly technical practice.
Knowledge production of toxicity seems to be hidden, buried on piles and piles of papers.
Inquiring on toxicity requires digging out, not only samples of possibly-polluted soils but also of reports and maps.
The author uses a map found by citizens at the end of a two-hundred-page technical document to illustrate the difficult task of navigating the bureaucratic processes and technical archives undertaken by their interlocutors, who strive to collect information to claim reparations around the toxicity that afflicts their communities. The infrastructure of knowledge production on these toxic spaces is designed for experts. Their interlocutors, on the other hand, are self-taught citizens; they learn the technical language of monitoring and reparation in the investigative process.
The image does a great job of illustrating the jargonish and complex nature of the information, reports, and documents citizens need to collect in order to make their demands heard.