This combination of two found images is notable in how it creates a stark contrast between the deliberate targeting of SROs and a romanticized form of historical revisionism promoted by Columbia University on their website. Its double exposure aesthetic is slightly disorienting, which can be productive in how it makes the viewer reflect on how the ongoing toxicity of forced removal via notions of blight is or isn’t visible.
This visualization and caption advance ethnographic insight by giving a message of confrontation across two very different historical narratives—one, a white supremacist romanticization of a neighborhood, and two, the systematic targetting of SRO buildings to transition them to privatized land using oppressive and coercive tactics against low-income, racialized tenants. The image’s sentiment is bold as it creates the effect of the blurring of both histories, while the orange targetting of SROs suggests a violence in how particular buildings undergo systematic forced evictions.
This image can be enriched by increasing the contrast so that the SRO map is more visible, as well as increasing the overall size of the image. In its current size it is difficult to appreciate the important detail on the map of SROs being targeted, as well as the language used in Columbia’s historical description. Adding another visual of what is considered blight may also add to the image.
This visualization shows how different conceptions of social and material toxicants play a pivotal role in strategic narrativizations of community. The opaque notions of blight and urban renewal are used to justify violent actions against raced classed and gendered tenants—thus, toxicity becomes a rationalization for oppression. Whether its actual existence is real or imagined, the supposed need for building material “renewal” obscures other violent motivations for tenant displacement.
The caption of this visualization can be elaborated to include a bit more detail regarding which types of “blight” have been targeted and what the rationalization behind these campaigns are. More information about the author’s focus on the connection between urban renewal and social or material forms of toxicity is needed.
This visualization and caption advance ethnographic insight by confronting two very different historical narratives—one, a white supremacist romanticization of a neighborhood, and two, the systematic targetting of SRO buildings to transition them to privatized land using oppressive and coercive tactics against low-income, racialized tenants. The image’s sentiment is bold as it creates the effect of the blurring of both histories, while the orange targetting of SROs suggests a violence in how particular buildings undergo systematic forced evictions.
