Shahab Albahar Annotations

What does this visualization (including caption) say about toxics?

Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 7:37pm

This visualization speaks to notions of how alcoholism renders a society toxic by extension of disciplinary regimes that conflate masculinity with violence.

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Can you suggest ways to enrich this image to extend its ethnographic import?

Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 7:34pm

I would implore you to include feminist and queer perspectives and artwork for a broader understanding of how (hyper)masculinity is constructed, challenged, and negotiated in Urban Guatemala. A visualization of the bus routes could further enrich your ethnography too.

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What kind of image is this? Is it a found image or created by the ethnographer (or a combination)? What is notable about its composition | scale of attention | aesthetic?

Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 7:31pm

Personally, I like the integration of comical humor in the form of illustration when addressing "gruesome" or difficult matters. The analogy visualized in the progression images between [re]productivity and alcoholism raises a critical question on the heteronormative message implied. It makes me think of the rhetoric used by Progressives in the late-nineteenth-century pertaining to alcoholism, violence, and diminishing productivity in the United States, culminating in the Volstead Act of 1919 which ushered the Prohibition Era.     

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Can you suggest ways to elaborate the caption of this visualization to extend its ethnographic message?

Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 7:22pm

I might want to revisit Balas y Bolos. Unfortunately, Google translate is not without error but for a Non-Spanish speaker, it translated to "bullets and bowling."

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How does this visualization (including caption) advance ethnographic insight? What message | argument | sentiment | etc. does this visualization communicate or represent?

Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 7:18pm

The sentiment I get from the critical commentary and the essay is the alcoholism in Urban Guatemala is causal for endemic aberrations and an impediment to societal progression. I would caution against overarching force-causing claims by perhaps endorsing a "formation stories" approach elaborated by historical sociologists Daniel Hirschman and Ariail Reed. For example, how does postcolonialism, queer assemblages, and neoliberalism intersect with violence and alcoholism in Urban Guatemala?

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