While I find all concepts to be interesting and related, I would like to be more actively involved with the concept of place. I seek to comprehend how the discursive and geopolitical potentially inform one another and manifest in my work around the toxicity of the knowledge economy and the “white spatial imaginary.” I am curious to explore how in a sense “global cities” have become the home for the physical manifestation of the knowledge economy.
I find two ideas from critical race theory to be particularly pertinent to the Design Group’s thinking and work: George Lipsitz’s “white spatial imaginary” and Katherine McKittrick’s interpretation of the poetics of landscape. Whereas Lipsitz’s notion assists with understanding social inequities as toxic space, McKittrick’s argument for the reconceptualization of space and place in order to discover more humanely workable geographies could help to both identify toxicities and inform alternatives to the toxicities we determine as we work through our projects.
My thoughts at the moment are a bit scattered, but I do think that we should take heed of Roxanne Varzi’s comments regarding the fact that last year’s posters had too much text. How might we create a project that is ethnographic without the overwhelming amount of text? How might we visualize in a manner that speaks to the subject at hand for itself in some way, without toxic propagation? I am also curious how we plan to separate out the various questions for the project, as I imagine there is much overlap. What are we trying to achieve by these separations?
Inspired by feminist geographer Doreen Massey’s work on space/place, this year’s Anthro in Tranist (Ait) conference is titled “Stories-so-far: Spatial Knowledges and Imaginaries.” As a member of the AiT committee, I’ve been submerged in conversations around space and place for the last 8 months, especially conversations around much of Massey’s work.
I’m afraid I have very little experience with visualization and creative forms of expression, though I’ve long been interested in the anthropology of tourism and critical heritage studies which both include literature on museum curatorial practices. I have experience thinking about the different ways heritage is produced in specific places or nation-states (ex. Myanmar). I also have experience doing ethnographic fieldwork with different weaving centers throughout Morocco and the Myanmar.
Years ago, I read Ruth Behar’s piece titled, “Searching for home: My connection to place is fluid and complex. In a nomadic world, do we still need a home?” and would like to think through this piece more as I develop my VtP project.
If I were to choose just one, I’m most interested in collaboration ethnography because it is something that is so new to me, yet should be something so familiar seeing how all forms of ethnography require collaboration. Last quarter, I was fortunate to work with Kim and Tim on the undergraduate course “Environmental Injustices,” and through them I was able to see the extraordinary benefits of what it means to collectively produce an analytic language.
For conceptualizing space and place, I think Doreen Massey’s work on spatial imaginations and space as being alive could add to both our thinking of space/place as an overall topic, but also to our imaginations as we think about constructing the actual gallery space in the spring: What does it mean to both conceptualize and visualize a space that is alive?
In terms of the installation, I’d love to think of the ways we could play with Massey’s theorizing of space/place as alive. To visualize something doesn’t just mean to see or to make visible, but it can also mean to form a mental image… to imagine. I want to think a bit about how imagination expresses itself through the materiality of space, through the poetics of various landscapes. So, what is the materiality of the space for our gallery?
I am interested in a more mindful use of visualizations in ethnography -- ranging from choosing book covers to working on digitally-enhanced “multimodal” forms of expression. It’s also an opportunity to think about when my own visual skills are sufficient for a project -- and when collaborating with others (designers, artists) makes more sense. This includes the question of what makes good collaboration and how to make it visible.
