This visualisation speaks to toxic discourses that can pose as 'progressive' but really conintue structural harms and injustices against particular parts of the population.
This visualisation speaks to toxic politics of apathy or disregard of particular types of measures to protect citizens from the effects of flooding and water scarcity.
The image and caption document well how toxics and environmental risks have specific histories and will have specific situated futures according to the political and cultural economy of the area in which they are materially found. The caption explains this at great length with reference to Austin.
The image and caption both comment on the flowing and cyclical nature of toxics - both materially and culturally. Materially, because the pollution is carried by a river. Culturally, because the public discourse around river pollution comes back with the seasons. Perhaps this could be highlighted a bit more in the caption.
The presence of the worker in the river also draws attention to the labour involved in dealing with toxics. The fact that it is an algal bloom as well - the presence of life - also shows how toxics are a more-than-human issue. I would like to hear more about the religous element involved in this work, too.
The image highlights how toxics must be dealth with by people, and that often people must go on living with them and dealing with their agency and consequences without training or risk (the comment suggests that the workers in the image were not well equipped).
Moreover, the presence of land and sea in the image highlights the mobility of toxic materials that pass between earth systems, which perhaps could be commented on in the caption.
This visualization (image and caption) is great for discussing how different forms of toxicity take effect at different scales and systems. The chemical toxins from fossil fuels are a threat to the geo level of the land, the bio level of human and nonhuman bodies, and the eco/atmo level of atmospheric systems. And yet, the fact that something as toxic as fossil fuels are still seen as valuable is due to the toxic ways in which our global economy has been planned at the macro level and practiced at the micro level. The forms of discourse being deployed to combat these framings (at the meta level) are laced with white supremacy, and exclude and erase other perspectives and systems of value. The fact that this erasure of native people's experiences has been able to persist and remain effective is evidence of structures precluding deutero learning.
Living in toxic places is not a choice, but the people who live in those places are the only ones that could really change their situation and cut the vicious circle. Any development that comes from the outside wouldn’t be based on the true minute to minute life that local people experience on a daily basis.
The image and caption point to the toxic dynamics of urban planning discourse -- such as the obscuring of race, gender, and class through a "neutral" stance. As I said in my other annotations, the conceptual link between image and text could be brought out more. What do we learn from this visual about toxics that we could apply to other images?
Two registers of toxicity emerge from this visualization--one, the idea of "pure Muskegon" which is tied to a comeback and revival of the area, which seems to be a form of toxicity by itself in that it enacts a particular visualization about pureness and futurity. The image itself wasn't clear but it seems to be an image of the unity symbol "under construction", which highlights how futurity and pureness is also under construction. the second, is about historical racial divide which is a sort of toxicity that is visible through the map.
This image emphasizes the spatial distribution of toxics moreso than the contents of air pollution itself. The mapping asks us to question borders, and to question both the notion of absolute control over toxic spread and the notion that toxic spread can be intentionally manipulated.