I like the representation of the blue nets turning grey to show how they measured toxics on the nets. I think that image is painted beautifully. Although we can’t really see toxicity in the water, air and body from the visual maybe it would help to describe how these people sense the toxics in the other things mentioned (water, air and body).
The caption is elaborate enough, however, the narratives of toxcities can be made explicit.
Perhaps it could benefit from extending the discussion of this relationship between toxicity and invisibility.
I think a conversation about haunting as really disrupting whole processes of knowledge production could be important here. This is one smudge/trace/part of the archive. One that is often neglected or completely ignored/written over. The interesting part here, though, is unlike many archives where there is a complete absence, this photo almost renders a partial absence. There is documentation. There is proof. There is some visibility, though small. What can you do with this small puzzle piece? How does something that was only documented on the periphery become the center?
The caption could be elaborated to directly connect the spatialization of events with notion of implied toxicities in the region.
It would help to have more explanation of the significance of this place as a toxic site and how that toxicity pervades it. In addition, it would be helpful to provide a bit more context about your research team and why they are there, as well as why your team was interested in gender and what this says about the place and toxicity. It may also help to shorten the caption to the main points you wish to convey regarding how this image fits within your project on toxicity of place. Including at least a sentence referring to the image itself may be useful for creating more cohesion between the two, with the visual ethnographically opening up the caption or the caption opening up the image, or both at once.
For me, the caption does the work that is necessary here. Of course, more detailed historical context would be helpful for a non-USA audience however then the caption would likely become less punchy. Combined with the image the caption enough information is provided to generate questions and reflection about toxicity, populations, place-making, representation, etc.
There are so many factors at play in this image which the caption critically unpacks for readers. I am interested in all of them. How do environmentalists engage marginalized publics in their protests? How does industry drive governance in the classification of zoning and land-use?
What strikes me about the protest sign is the deployment of the word "Fake." I think this is what Oviya means in her discussion of legality. It also references a representational truth (through mapping) that is outside of politics.
It would be helpful if the author incorporates the notion of toxic places a bit more in their caption. Presently, the caption ends on a rather sudden note and does not quite conclude (and it is unclear how the number of cattle feeds into the argument). A little more theorization may also help to identify the ethnographic message, perhaps by concluding the caption with a tie-in back to the concepts in the second paragraph.
I think the caption could be expanded. As I noted earlier, a whole essay is embedded in this visualization. I would like to see more elaboration of the term, "political apathy" as I think that's such a weighted, rich frame for understanding this image.