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

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Oviya Govindan's picture
March 2, 2020

This image directly ties the author's concerns about politicization of urban aesthetics with the hegemonic forms of sexuality that are coded into urban policy. The caption and commentary shows how certain kinds of non normative bodies are categorized as risky and how this becomes enforced spatially through policies around prostitution free zones. The argument emerges more from the caption than the image per se. The image itself shows an example of urban code to crack down on prostitution and how it is made visually present on-site to people in the city. I would prompt the author to try to incorporate the argument about how regulating space also means excluding specific kinds of bodies as well; this is a powerful argument.

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Isabelle Soifer's picture
February 28, 2020

The visualization and caption are each very powerful in terms of critique of urban planning. The violence of the sign and "annihilation of people by law" appear to work in tandem to criminalize people in urban spaces. The sentiment is one of raced, sexed, and classed violence, all of which are toxic. Even the sign's color itself, the color pink which has often been used by corporations to monetize women's sexuality with color codes, conveys a sense of public/private violence simultaneously. 

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