The book is about a study carried out by the Carnegie Corporation in South Africa called the Poor White Study. It looks at antiblackness, white poverty, and white supremacy in the context of philanthopy.
Each chapter could be a stand-alone essay and focuses on a particular group/process involved in the Poor White Study. The layout performs an argument through looking at socio-cultural processes versus specific geographies.
Blurry forlorn dog in the foreground and a rural plot of land in the background with trees, a tent, and a white man crouched, cooking over a fire. What most caught my eye was the beat-up red armchair. There are only three colors in the image - green, brown, and a pop of red.
The sketch's discussion of the author's argument and the theoretical debates that this book engages (antiblackness, whiteness, humanitarianism, development, critical race theory, feminism)
The sketch proposes that the text could be presented in the form of an educational module for U.S. and South African children. It also suggests that the text could be presented on an educational online platform with interactive features and a historical archive of photos, videos, etc.
I think the text could lend itself well to a museum exhibit and/or a in-person or online educational workshop for adults. It could also be a podcast series. Any educational module could include mapping activities/sketches for participants on constructs of whiteness and blackness, forms of domination, and the scientific and eugenic practices of the Poor White Study.
Each chapter could hold up on its own, focused on one particular aspect of the "Poor White Study" and how it connects to the broader discussion of the global white imaginary and the fear of white racial degeneration. Each chapter focuses on particular parties and individuals involved, including photographers and cartoonists, white feminist uplifters, segregationists, and labor. The text layout is informed by her approach to critical geography, which strives to complicate the nation-state and analyze transnational processes.
