This visualization makes the argument that pollution in the air, produced by the refinery, is obscured when measured through personal monitors. This is an argument about how knowledge production about quotidian anthropocenic toxics like VOCs shapes how problems of toxicity are regulated and addressed.
This visualization shows how toxics like VOCs are invisible and "quotidian" presences which are felt, but often not easy to make visible for regulation. Toxicity here refers to the substances like VOCs and explores both their materiality when considered in terms of particles, and their seeming immateriality when they become invisible due to our ways of looking and creating knowledge. The overall essay description suggests there may be other toxics at work such as race, class, gender, but that doesn't come through in this visualization.
This visualization effectively introduces the viewer to an emergent conflict between the families living in the toxic place and the activists who understand themselves as advocates for those families. It underscores the complexity of the situation, the precarity of those affected, and the impossibility of a straight-forward solution. Moreover, the visualization speaks to the uneven distribution of symbolic power to "frame the social" and utter reality into being.
I think the caption does a nice job of presenting the ongoing conflict over representation and the precarious futures of both the smelting operation and the community around it. With that said, I might recommend striving for a more even balance of text devoted to the environmentalists' position (which currently predominates the caption) and the locals' perspective (which is currently relegated to a brief pair of concluding sentences.
Using a screenshot, an image within an image, works well to provide context related to how the child's photo was circulated and enframed. I especially like how the number of Facebook shares (44) is visible to the side.
Nothing immediately pops to mind for how to further enrich this image.
This visualization makes a strong statement about the stakes of recognizing places as toxic and people as contaminated. It unsettles common-sense notions about environmental advocacy, demonstrating the gulf between local, national, and international values and perspectives. And it problematizes the uneven distributions of symbolic power surrounding the Doe Run smelter.
The image immediately draws my attention to the toxic chemicals only made present through the bucket as their placeholder. The child to the left of the screen further extends the message, conveying the everyday reality of families in close proximity to pesticides. As we see oppositional images (the child vs toxins) within a single picture, the caption further elaborates the contradictions that exist in the everyday lives of farmers in regards to pesticides.
I think the caption could clearly articulate toxicity as not just that of chemicals, but the toxicity of refusal as well. Is the refusal only because the toxicity is not experienced in their own bodies? Or are there other possiblities?
I assume this image was taken by the ethnographer, it is cited as being from the ethnographer's own field notes/images. What is notable is the juxtaposition between the child and the toxicity of the bucket.
