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.
This visualization muddies the boundaries between body and landscape, illustrating how toxicity can flow between their porous barriers. The caption elucidates the contradictions of living with toxicity under capitalism: the fishers lament their reduced harvest since the river has become polluted but will not acknowledge that their product could be contamintated.
This visualization muddies the distinctions between the body and the landscape. The caption further elucidates the contradictions in toxicity under capitalism: while the fishers lament the decreased harvest since the river has become polluted, they reject the idea that the product they are selling could be contaminated.
This visualization muddies the boundaries between body and landscape. The caption further elucidates the contradictions of toxicity within capitalism: the fishers lament the decrease in harvest since the pollution of the river, but will not acknowledge the possibility of cotamination in the product they are selling.
I really enjoyed the sentiment of the whole essay - that interesting things are happening in the in between places. Thinking about interstis was particularly interesting, as a friend of mine has just done research on liminality in relation to military deployments and how it affects the individual and their families. I think that this could be another angle to look at perhaps?
This visualization represents toxicity imbricated in language based on text from a fact sheet. What is quite unique here is the representation of past, present, and future through language. As the author indicates, the images and its text description depict how toxic imaginaries can be shaped and transformed to represent‚or rather fabricate— future ideas detached from their toxic realities.
The caption suggests archive as a place—yet it does not develop the idea. Why is it a place? What kind of place? How is the image inviting viewers to see it as such? Are we talking about a particular material archive (e.g., a particular Californian archive)? Or archive as a historical figure?
I like the idea, and the image is evocative – but the caption needs to do more work.
The artifact expands the ethnographic insight on existence of multiple toxicities and destruction of 'nature' in the Amazon forests due to presence of deforestation leading to increase in illegal farming and mining practices and due to ongoing legacies of war like landmines. It connects the narratives of peace and war as both poison and cure for the forests.
This is a striking image that pulls the viewer's attention to the center of the frame, eliciting in the viewer the same focused attention evident in the intent stares of the fishermen themselves. At first glance, the picture is enigmatic--it is not clear exactly what is happening or why. The text provided by the caption provides the crucial details, although the toxicity present in the scene remains almost incidental to it--effectively invisible to the viewer, blandly quotidian to those exposed to it. The effect is to remind us of the ways in which toxicity is subtly insinuated into everyday life, taking on a matter-of-fact character that makes it all the more insidious.
Photo and caption draw out two dimensions of the place, the shoreline, as both a place of recreation and site of a massive construction project, both of which the men you study find themselves part of. It's great that both the men with surfboards and the construction equipment are both captured in a single frame.