Final Project

 

So sorry this is a little blurry! If you want to see a less blurry version email me (ns116017@ohio.edu)! Thank y'all :) 

Thoughts on "Bomb It!"

Since I could not be there for our discussion on Thursday, I will make my last blog post here the sharing of my thoughts on the film. There was very little in this film with which I agreed. At times, I had true sympathy for some of the artists, and I could agree with them on some issues. I'll start with what I liked about the film.

    The concept of "there are no New Yorkers in New York anymore" got to me. I have always hated the idea of living in New York, but I was never really sure why. Some of my favorite books, including A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Janitor's Girl take place in New York in the 1910s and 1950s respectfully, and they paint the picture of a charming city (yes, I know Brooklyn isn't New York). Yet, whenever I think of living there, it sounds like an awful idea, even though I wouldn't mind a similar city such as Boston or Philadelphia. I understand now that that's it, that New York doesn't even seem like a city as much as a touristy financial capital. I'll give the film that. Moving on, Sixe from Barcelona said something like "I belong first to Barcelona, then to the world." I have genuine admiration for that kind of loyalty to one's hometown. Also, the old woman who liked it for beautification purposes, I have no argument there; if she allows it, then there's nothing to complain about. I thought the Parisien made tasteful art, and the people in Capetown seem to have a worthy cause. 

    The men in Sao Paulo seemed hard to challenge. The one... Wag Cacao, I think? He pointed out that much of what's legal is far uglier than anything he and his crew do. I appreciated the "Buddha is watching" bit from Tokyo, and I liked Belx2 (I think that was her name). In LA, I agreed emphatically with Revok's critique of the dominance of the automobile (because of course I did). The last positive thing I have written down came from the guy with the bridge piercing, saying that if you "sell out," he'll still respect you, but as an entrepreneur, not a graffiti artist. I think that's a very reasonable way of viewing things.

    Other than that, I found most of the artists to be very unreasonable in their thinking. They decry the art form's becoming acceptable and commercialized, and yet they complain about being persecuted? That man in Germany, all I heard out of him was "I hate my country because it sucks"; I find myself less than inspired by such a cause. The discussion with the old man in Barcelona is a good example of what the authorities in New York and Germany were saying, that breaking a window leads to general window breaking. Those Barceloneses seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that illegal graffiti, no matter how pretty it may be, is what inspired those teenagers to vandalize the man's door. That woman in LA, TKO, I literally laughed out loud when she complained about someone tagging (what I believe was) her house. Most of the LA scene in general annoyed me; I think the non-graffitizing citizens have every right to be upset. Tagging an overpass or a freeway noise wall is one thing, but private property and road signs is another matter.

    Until now, I've skipped Pike and Nug--from the Low Countries, I think? Mostly Nug. I laugh at the notion of him fancying himself an artist. He's not, at least he's not shown to be in the clip of him "at work" in the studio (the subway). He looks like he's literally drunk and/or high, working with all the skill and precision of a toddler armed with crayons on the wall of his house. I don't understand how he isn't ashamed of himself, really. What he makes is trash, not art. I suppose it's implied that Pike then comes along and works on Nug's "template", although if that's the case they should have shown as much. In any case, Nug could be replaced by an exceptionally tall sixth grader.

    The last thing I'll say about the movie: that guy from LA with the bridge piercing. Another thing he mentioned was a brief spiel against capitalism. I wonder if he supposes he could fair better in the USSR or the PRC.

    I'm not against street art, I'm really not. Well-made and tasteful paintings on otherwise blank slates are at least tolerable in my mind. Emblazoning your own name in giant, caricatured letters doesn't just seem wrong; it seems like an allegory for narcissism. I really have no idea why some of these people act as if they have a noble cause. And although "well-made" and "tasteful" are subjective terms, there can be some consensus. If you disagree, go up to the roof of the parking garage. Tell me how much profanity, hate speech and how many manhoods you can count, and then tell me if you still believe that nothing can be called "tasteless".

For further reading/viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS18bNaaRt4

This is a nine-minute video from the infographics show explaining the "Broken Window Theory."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/

This is the original 1982 article, "Broken Windows" by Kelling and Wilson from the Atlantic.

https://alice.library.ohio.edu/record=b1766722~S7

This is Alden Library's copy of The Janitor's Girl by Frieda Friedman. It's a charming young adult book in its own right, but it's also a realistic, contemporary depiction of Manhattan neighborhood life in the 1950s. I'm just mentioning it because of that bit about the Disneyfication of Manhattan.

Contesting resistance: Reproducing discriminatory systems through the transgression of urban art

 

I know that many of you will not probably be able to read this post. However, after watching Bomb it! I really wanted to share this with you. I will keep it brief. I could not stop thinking about graffiti I have seen many times, so I asked my sister to send me these pictures. They were taken in Quito, Ecuador, just a few blocks away from my house. This graffiti was painted about two years ago in front of the National Assembly (The Ecuadorian Congress). The graffiti has a message that reads El amor no tiene género (Love has no gender), and it shows a heterosexual couple -at the center- and two homosexual couples kissing.  The graffiti painting has been deteriorating over time. However, if you look closely, you will clearly note that there are some transgressions and erasures made to specific parts of the graffiti. The mouths, the kiss of homosexual couples were scratched, and more and more, they have been erased. Also, the two women that are kissing have a painting scratch on them as well.

As we saw in Bomb it! urban art, and more specifically, graffiti, have been a powerful tool of resistance and expression for those marginalized. In that context, I think that these images are very thought-provoking and open a space for debate and reflection. On the one hand, I believe that it is worth considering how these transgressions reflect the stance of some parts of the society regarding issues like gender equality, LGBTQ+ groups, and freedom of expression. It is important to consider that Ecuador is still a very traditional and conservative society when it comes to social issues and equality. Although Ecuador is a secular country, most people are Catholic, and it is important to understand that most social dynamics related to gender and race are also deeply related to the legacies of colonialism that shape social structures and race/gender expectations. However, this makes me think about what the effect of transgressing graffiti would be like this in, say, the walls near Baker Center, that serve as a place for expression through graffiti.

On the other hand, I think that there are two specific elements that make these transgressions more impactful. One is the fact that the kiss, the mouth, is the element that is transgressed. It is not the entire couple, but only the kiss, the expression of affect, of placer, that contests gender expectations and that expresses the right for individuals to choose who they love. This, for me, is a very symbolic way of sustaining the repression of human affects and emotions like placer, love, and of course, voice. A famous capoeira Mestre -Mestre Pastinha- once said: “Capoeira e tudo o que a boca come (Capoeira is everything that the mouth eats). This phrase makes me think that the mouth is an element of interaction with our senses and other things that create connections for us. A kiss, food, our voices. Finally, it is worth considering also how the couple of two women has a scratch, how, it might seem, it is an effort to also send a message about another deep and worrying problem in Latin American societies, and in the world in general, which is violence against women. Only in 2021, until November 25, 172 women were killed in Ecuador as a product of femicide.

These are some thoughts that I wanted to share through this space. Graffiti can certainly be a way to express and contest current social norms, and, at the same time, it is worth thinking bout how other elements and members of the society also struggle to sustain oppressive systems. The questions, maybe, should be about why is it that these systems are sustained? Why is equality, in all its forms, so difficult to achieve? The use and transgression of this graffiti in particular visibilizes those contesting positions in society.

Happy end of the semester, everyone!

Acceptable Public Art vs. Unacceptable – Geographies of Resistance

 After really enjoying “Bomb It!” during class, I’ve decided to write a little bit on acceptable vs. unacceptable public art.

What we consider and promote as public art is organized and carefully orchestrated by those who hold power in cities. Public art is normally commissioned and created in a designated city space. In both social geography and urban (re)development, the value of public art is increasingly recognized. The same is not true for street art in general (or we wouldn’t have pieces of media like Bomb It!). The value of graffiti as being art has long been speculated. Of course, this is challenged. Merriam Webster defines art as being, “something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings”. Of course, this definition is not static – beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but definitions of beauty are euro-centric, imperialistic, racist, etc. They’re socially produced and reproduced. Art is up to the viewer’s interpretation, which is why we can see a discernible lack of acceptance of street art due to dominant narratives. This is not only evident in commonly accepted definitions of art, but also graffiti being heavily influenced by the hip-hop movement – a counterculture that is marked by a lack of conformity. This isn’t to say that graffiti doesn’t foster its own conformity as a culture. Graffiti resists contemporary concepts of art and epistemologies both mold those definitions and their antonyms. Despite being both public and art, graffiti is widely considered street art instead of public art. This art has more potential to represent marginalized folks than commodified, commissioned, and designated public art.

Much like the definition of art, cities are constantly being made and re-made around the world. This is inherent both physically and socially. To truly understand the powers at play behind the construction of the urban environment it’s essential that we look at manifestations of urban culture – both conformist and non-conformist.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/03/living/ireport-street-art-public-art/index.html

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art

 

Hobo Day at Athens High School

 

In case the caption is too fuzzy to read, I'll repeat it: "This intriguing photograph was taken on April 22, 1927, a day for letting one's hair down and forgetting the rules. Dressed in some truly outlandish costumes, students at Athens High School on West State Street celebrate Hobo Day, a tradition that has gone by the wayside. Straw, 2007.

NOTE: This post should not count as a post in its own right; it is mostly a comment to Noelle. The only reason I have made it a post is that I could not discern how to add a photograph to a comment.

I think that it is interesting that dressing as a hobo used to be common practice in a less politically correct time period. I think this photograph reflects the nature of humans in a way that may explain (if not excuse) a person dressing up as a homeless person for Halloween. 

    It is important to understand that many of these kids would have grown up in comparatively hard times. True, this predates the depression, but that does not negate the fact that it is the 1920s. Basic utilities such as running water, electricity and gas were still rare or brand new in 1927; "In 1937, only ten percent of Ohioans living in rural south-central Ohio had electricity in their homes," (Ohio History Connection). Certainly most of these kids would have lived in conditions far worse than most kids in modern Athens, some of even the middle class being worse off than the modern poor. Lacking a gas stove, central heating, an in-house water closet and a family car, the poorer kids, though still elevated from the rank of hobo, were far less removed than those kids of today. Many of their parents and grandparents had grown up in an even less advanced time, in a time when most families were lucky to have one room all to themselves, in a time before grocery stores, in a time when people were generally sick all through the winter due to malnutrition (Allitt 2014). Also, the "homelessness epidemic" of the 1980s had yet to occur, so it would have been far easier for them to see hobos, most of them young men, as a romanticized quirk of their society rather than their status as an endemic problem, perhaps the same way we view the bohemian characters of "Rent".

    All of that said, there exists in the 21st century a HUGE gap between hobos/homeless and the rest of society. More than that, any educated person these days has little excuse for not recognizing that homelessness is an endemic problem affecting families in rather harmful ways. I think it is in rather poor taste for privileged people to dress as a mockery of the families, the veterans and the otherwise dispossessed that make up the homeless, but I believe that this photo and its historical context may elucidate why people may do so without any malevolent intentions. Understanding this gap in knowledge may be useful in closing said gap and ending the practice in the future.

Afterword: I generally have a mixed opinion of the "It's a Culture, Not a Costume" movement; I understand it's in poor taste to dress up "as a Mexican" or "as a Japanese", but some of their examples are a bit too sensitive in my opinion. There should be nothing controversial about a white woman--or man, for that matter--dressing up as a geisha girl, just like there should be nothing controversial about an Asian dressing up as a cowboy, nor a black man dressing up as a Nazi soldier, nor a girl dressing up as superman. A white girl dressing up "as a Chinese", "as a Pacific Islander" or "as an American-Indian"? Yes, that's racist and should be discouraged. But a white girl dressing up as "Mulan", "Moana" or "Pocahontas"? I fail to see the harm in that; by that logic, any non-white girl should be forbidden from dressing up as Anna, Elsa or Ariel, much less real-life celebrities such as Susan B. Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt; any non-white boy should be forbidden from dressing as Superman or Spiderman, much less The Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps I've gone on too long about this, but I've had a chip on my shoulder about this since 2013, when this movement first came to be. 

Sources:

Allitt, Patrick. 2014. The Industrial Revolution. The Great Courses. Chantilly, Virginia.

    This is a lecture series detailing the evolution of poverty and privilege in Europe, America and eventually the rest of the world, from the 18th century to the present day. Contact me at nr303414@ohio.edu or 740-591-9511 if you want to know the specific lectures to which I'm referring. 

Ohio History Connection. https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Electricity#:~:text=It%20was%20not%20until%20President,had%20electricity%20in%20their%20homes.

    This was my source for the electrification question. Of course, city dwellers would have been more privileged than rural folk.

Shaw, Richard A., with assistance from the Athens County Historical Society and Museum. 2007. Images of America: Athens. p. 55, photograph 2. Arcadia Publishing. Charleston, South Carolina.

    This is the book from which I scanned the photo of "Hobo Day".

Further resources:

Kay, Terry. 1976. The Year the Lights Came On. Center Point Publishing. Thorndike, Maine.

    This book is partially novel, partially memoir, set in rural Georgia when the Southern countryside was finally electrified.

Further Thoughts on Geographies of Resistance

After this past week’s discussion on geographies of resistance, I wanted to look more into the topic because I found it really interesting and I came across Olga Davis’ (1999) article “In the Kitchen: Transforming the Academy Through Safe Spaces of Resistance.” This article frames the African American kitchen legacy into one that can be applied to the modern world of academia. The goal of this is to “transform institutions of higher learning in ways similar to those their foremothers in the Southern plantation kitchens of the nineteenth century used to advance African American women's empowerment through self-definition while rejecting objectification as other” (Davis 1999, 364). In the beginning of class we briefly discussed this idea of the kitchen as a site of resistance when talking about the geographies of home. I like that through this article I got a more in-depth understanding of what this means and why it is important in the understanding of resistance geography and social justice. It also further instills that almost all of the themes in this class work together in some way — or have some connection to each other. Not only does this article have connection to our discussions on home but I also found a connection to our reading from Design Studio on spatial justice. When Davis (1999) says “The notion of safe spaces resonates with a womanist theoretical perspective which views the world (in this case, the academic world) as a dynamic place where the goal is not merely to survive or to fit in or to cope; but rather to feel ownership and accountability” (365), I think of the principles of “the rights to be, thrive, express and connect” (Design Studio for Social Intervention). The kitchen here is, historically, a way for African American women in the United States to gain these senses of identity during the time of slavery. Bringing this into the modern age, Davis suggests that this type of resistance can be brought into the world of academia to create change in racial and gendered structures that exist within it.

Article:

In the Kitchen: Transforming the Academy Through Safe Spaces of Resistance by Olga Idriss Davis

References:

Davis, Olga Idriss. “In the Kitchen: Transforming the Academy through Safe Spaces of Resistance.” Western Journal of Communication 63, no. 3 (1999): 364–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570319909374647. 

Design Studio for Social Intervention. Spatial Justice: A Frame for Reclaiming our Rights to Be, Thrive, Express, and Connect. Accessed at: http://ds4si.org/storage/SpatialJustice_ds4si.pdf.

Fear of Being in a Public Space as A Woman

 In class, we talked a lot about geographies of fear, specifically women’s vulnerability of being in a public space. Sexual harassment and acts of violence in public spaces are an everyday occurrence in which affects the day-to-day lives of woman. It’s important to understand these fears and realize that this behavior is often times dismissed with no consequences. These spaces of fear are created from characteristics that invoke fear and everyone internalizes fear differently. Although, men have a significant vulnerability to violent crime victimization as we learned in Alec Brownlow’s reading. 

    Last March, a few of my friends and I took a trip to Fort Lauderdale for spring break and had an experience of sexual harassment in which I was genuinely scared for my life while being in a public space. We were out on the town and towards the end of the night, we were getting ready to head back to our hotel when two older men approached my friend and I and asked if we wanted to go on a “boat ride.” We kindly declined and told them that we’ve had a long night and wanted to get back. Our other friends already caught a ride back to the hotel, so it was just my friend and myself. The men kept questioning about where we were from and continued to make inappropriate comments about our bodies and how “sexy” we were. Nicely, we told them that we were college students on spring break and that we had to get back to our hotel. Trying to quickly find our Uber to get home, the men continued to shout provocative words at us and said that they’d come to our hotel and show us a good time. When the Uber arrived, the two men tried to get into the vehicle with us and we tried to push them out and had to shout that they weren’t with us until the driver yelled at them to get out. This night was incredibly traumatizing, I can still remember the fear I felt in my body. I was angry with myself for not calling the police being the situation could’ve gone way worse. There are times where I still witness sexual harassment in a public space. The difference now is that instead of reacting nicely, I speak up and defend myself against this disgusting behavior as long as I’m not alone and in a public space. I'm tired of pointing my nose at the ground and allowing others to treat me like I'm a piece of meat. It's absolutely mortifying and degrading. 

From a young age, we are taught to never walk alone because it is not safe. You never know what someone’s intentions are, which makes it almost impossible to stand up for yourself without becoming feared for your safety. In Kristen Days article on being feared, the study instead was on men’s experiences of being feared. It is too simple to portray all women as victims in this equation and all men as aggressors. We must work instead to increase women's real and perceived safety while acknowledging that women and men occupy a range of positions in these relationships. (Day, 2006.) I thought this study was extremely insightful and explained how gender discourses are increasingly challenged.

https://youtu.be/sdn15-t7kg0

Being Black on a College Campus

    For our last project we wore a noticeable corporeal marker. We walked around and recorded any reactions we had. I had a hard time with my marker but one of the things that I ended up wearing was a mask that says “Racist People Suck” . When I first saw the mask at the store I didn't think anything of it. I was like “I want that. duh yeah they do, some people may like it” But I never thought about anything negative that may come along with me wearing it. The first time I wore the mask out it was to a hockey game with my roommate. I wore it on my way to the arena no problem, but as soon as I got inside I saw someone read my mask and it dawned on me that not everyone is going to be okay with it, which seems stupid because of course there are people are the racists..that suck. But in my head Ohio University is a safe space and that wasn't something I needed to worry about. But I remembered the Make America Great Again and Trump 2020 flags, I remembered the Abort Black Babies signs, the nights at Red Brick where I heard white boys throwing around the N word in a multitude of ways and I remembered the small discriminatory things said to me during my time here. And suddenly I didn't feel safe, but I didn't take the mask off just yet. Me and my roommate made our way to our seats and while I was a little anxious because I was aware more people read it, it wasn't enough for me to take it off. But then I heard the words I dread to hear. “Please stand for our National Anthem”. And while I don't believe in the National Anthem I don't mind listening to it and I don't judge others for saying it, so that's not why I dread it. I dread the National Anthem because I know that any second now someone is going to give me death glare because while everyone else there is standing proud, hand over heart, I’m sitting down awkwardly staring at the ground. I believe in my stance on the National Anthem so much that I don't think I could ever be peer pressured to stand. But what I did feel pressured to do was take the mask off and switch to the extra standard blue mask I had in my pocket after I heard mumbles of the “black girl that’s sitting” and seeing fingers obviously pointed my way. I went to a graduation for the Marines during Trump’s presidency and didn't stand up and was a little scared but was otherwise fine. So why did I feel so anxious and like I shouldnt wear it here on my mostly liberal college campus? When I got home that night I thought about it and talked to my roommate about it because it really upset me. 

    We came to the conclusion that my anxiety came less from a place of fear or being uncomfortable and more from feeling like my safe space was being violated. I’ve talked before about how much this campus means to me and how I consider it my home. I’ve always felt free to be myself and express myself in any way and without that much judgement. But wearing a mask with a semi-politically statement on it that I knew could incite anger and confrontation made me scared to be myself and express my beliefs. In class we talk about the importance of safety in an environment and how that changes the way that we see ourselves and how we are perceived by others. It occurred to me while doing the corporeal marker project that just by being black on campus that created a sense of “unsafeness” because of the current climate of our world.So naturally I remembered our discussions in class about the article Walking While Black by Garnette Cadogan(which is a whole post in itself) but most importantly. Spatial Justice and Spatial Claims. Spatial claims are the right “to be and become”. “To use spatial claims also include rights to be safe in space regardless of gender, race, sexual- orientation, and other aspects of identity” (pg.6). Wearing the mask reminded me about how at times I feel like I shouldn't be in for example the Marine graduation, Athens or on campus or in a certain place because of the color of my skin and my beliefs. 

      In this post I talked about a very small amount of my experiences as a black student on a predominantly white campus. And thankfully I haven't had anything that went beyond and uncomfortable scary confrontation with a random stranger. But there are many people who have experienced much worse. Below I linked a video that interviews individuals who have faced racial bias on a college campus, and discusses ways that people can recognize bias in themselves in certain situations and how to further navigate them. Thanks for reading/watching :) 

Colleges and Universities Have a Racial Profiling Problem

Cited: 

Cadogan, Garnette. 2016. “Walking While Black.” Literary Hub, July 8, 2016.

Being Queer in Public Space

We've been talking a lot about public space throughout the class, and last week we really honed in on the implications of public space and how it affects different groups. For example, in Mitchell's article, the author argued that public space legitimizes and delegitimizes the public that inhabits the given public space. Mitchell focused mostly on the homeless, and how they are seen as an involuntary public, thus inept to be considered by definition, "legitimate citizens" (p. 118). The author explains, though homeless people are almost always in public spaces, they are rarely considered part of the public.

This made me think about the public as a cisheteronormative space, and how often queer and gender non-conforming individuals have to adjust their mannerisms or performance of identity in public space to not be the target of slurs, violence, stares, or other uncomfortable situations. I thought about how queer folks are often delegitimized in society, let alone in their experiences in public space. I found a great article that talks about these experiences of LGBTQIAP+ individuals' in their first times holding hands in public; some of the excerpts from the informants are endearing and overcoming, but others demonstrate perfectly the danger that queer folks tip-toe around in public.

For example, one lesbian respondent states, "I was 21 in Lincoln, Neb. It was 1996. In a moment of affection, I grabbed my girlfriend’s hand and was promptly threatened by an angry young man who fantasized in great detail about blowing my head off with a shotgun" (Phillip, 2018).

Another informant recalls, "...we really try to refrain from touching too much and rarely kiss in public. Not to say we aren't affectionate in public, but we stay very conscious of what is too much and what might offend people. Less than a year into my relationship with the woman I am now married to, we were walking into a Walmart holding hands. We were talking to each other and paying no mind to anyone else. A man was coming out of the store with his daughter (probably 3 to 4 years old) and made a face at us and then said, very loudly, 'That's disgusting'" (Phillip, 2018).

In my own personal experience, I was closeted in high school when I was dating my ex-girlfriend, and we never touched or stood too close to one another in public. We didn't want to call attention to ourselves, we were uncomfortable and scared, and had to press pause on our affection whenever we were out in public. This is a mild experience. Black and Brown queer individuals face racialised, intersectional discrimination as opposed to white queer folks, and I am privileged as a white, cis-presenting genderqueer individual in my experiences in public as gay.

This privilege is incredibly evident in this breathtaking spoken-word poem I have found on Youtube. It is titled, "To the Transphobic Cis White Gay Men at Pride." The speaker explains, "Did you know that pride was birthed from a [Black] woman with a penis? But most of us still can't call 9-1-1 when we are assaulted; when we are called a tr*nny n***** in the streets. When we are followed home with catcalls and fear lodged in our throats--I wonder, do you still think about the death toll when you come? [...] How there was never a flag to stop us from being murdered?"

I found this poem wildly powerful. I have linked both the Phillip article and the poem below. I hope both sources spark some thought or insight. Thanks all.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/reader-center/pride-month-gay-queer-expressions.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnXhH5yWoG8&ab_channel=ButtonPoetry

Homelessness and Halloween: Taking a trip back to 2013's HallOUween

https://mcch.net/2017/10/17/homelessness-not-costume-mcch/

Wealth, to Poverty, to Antique Shopping: The Story of Gentrification in San Telmo

The barrio of San Telmo is an icon of Buenos Aires. It has seen intense changes throughout its history, being the oldest burrow of the city. It is home to iconic parts of Argentine culture, such as tango, the fileteado painting style, and Sunday antique fairs. It is where great writers like Julio Cortázar and Jorge Luis Borges would write for inspiration. 

A tango couple performing during the
Sunday Feria on Plaza Dorrego

 On a walk through its narrow streets, visitors have the chance to visit its iconic coventillos. Originally mansions, many wealthy families chose to migrant to greener pastures in La Pampa province. Thus, these unique buildings were left abandoned. 

A coventillo in the late 19th Century

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of Spanish and Italian immigrants came to Argentina’s shores. In a unique decision, specific rooms of these mansions housed immigrant families, turning the estates into apartments (coventillos). Still, during the past thirty years, San Telmo has slowly been experiencing its third significant change, and its modern challenge comes with the word gentrification. The conventillo style of living is no more. One can enter these historical buildings, such as Casa de los Ezeiza, and find a different function: boutiques, antique shops, cafes, and bed & breakfasts.  

Inside Casa de la Ezeiza
(Aka Casa Defensa)

El Mercado de San Telmo

As a person who has spent a lot of time in Buenos Aires and specifically San Telmo, I noticed the locals' concerns. On the outside, San Telmo is booming with business, but on the inside, locals are afraid that the amount of attention it receives will make it impossible to live in. It appears that San Telmo's economy focuses on the short-term stay of tourists, and with few commodities for
those who reside there. For example, in the emblematic market area, one could find over 20 butcheries filled with world-renowned Argentine beef inside. Now there are less than three, and these areas are now antique stores. The famous Sunday antique market in Plaza Dorrego has also bothered locals. The overpopulated streets have made it unbearable for many, making them decide to leave and sell their inherited coventillos to multi-million-dollar hotels.

A typical Sunday through Calle Defensa in San Telmo

From my personal experience, porteños love preserving and sharing their heritage, especially those from San Telmo. I remember speaking to a local fileteado painter about this issue in 2018. The problem to him is that the plan for San Telmo is not stable. It is pushing out the people that started the sought-after culture in the first place.

Fileteado paintings, a unique style started by Italian Immigrants

 He and other San Telmo natives do not mind foreigners living or visiting San Telmo, places are going to inevitably change, after all. The issue is that the community is not involved in the changes. The fears are similar to the documentary “Flag Wars”, telling the story of LGBTQ members moving into a historically black neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio. In the documentary, local leaders of the Black Community feared how outsiders would outprice residents, and change the rich culture that was created there. 

The story of San Telmo leads to a question that still needs to be answered, how can a historical space remain authentic to its cultural heritage, while allowing outside influence? One thing is for sure, the local community needs heavy involvement.  

Bar Dorrego, a symbol of San Telmo

Sources and more information on San Telmo Gentrification: 

https://wp.nyu.edu/artandpoliticsinthecity/2015/08/28/san-telmo-les-history-culture/

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jan/13/no-choice-leave-displacement-tales-long-term-gentrification-six-cities

https://www.telam.com.ar/notas/201705/188874-los-nativos-de-san-telmo-en-alerta-por-el-exceso-de-turistas-y-negocios.html

 Capoeira, public space, and identities

The other day one of my closest friends posted a video of her playing capoeira on the Paris metro. For those of you who are not familiar with this practice, capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines body movement, martial arts, and music. The oral history of capoeira tells us that this was a practice developed by enslaved people in Brazil to defend themselves against the enslavers and resist oppression. Like many other practices of African and Black ancestry, capoeira was marginalized and even penalized for many years. Nonetheless, through social and political processes, capoeira became a symbol of Brazil, and years later it was spread throughout the world. Through globalization and transnational practice, capoeira has also suffered a commodification process, which, for some capoeira masters and practitioners, has implied a detachment from the roots and meanings of the practice. However, this translocal process has also implied that capoeira is being experienced and perceived as a practice of resistance, empowerment, and identity.

Even though my friend’s capoeira performance on the Paris metro is not the first that I have seen -or done- in ‘unusual places’, I think this is a very good example of how capoeira, and other marginalized practices, are useful to think about how we experience places and our bodies. When we are using public transport or when we are in a public place, we might feel sometimes constricted. We are supposed to seat on the bus or the metro and exercise or move in a studio or a gym. However, even in places where we are supposed to move, we find restrictions. For instance, it is difficult for me to find a place in Ping Recreation Center to train or move. Many open spaces are restricted for group use, so I have had to use the hallway innumerous times to practice. Sometimes I do practice in outdoor spaces. However, the weather does not always allow this. Thus, I have had to constantly look for new places to train and move. I am constantly negotiating with the use of these spaces to overcome limitations and movement restrictions.

I need to move, to practice capoeira. I do not do this just because I love it. I do this because I am working on capoeira. I am a graduate student at the Latin American Studies program. I have a Political Science background, but I am also a capoeirista. Actually, capoeira has now become the focus of my research. This once marginalized practice has opened many doors for me in terms of education, funding, and work. Likewise, it has opened physical doors for me. I taught a capoeira workshop with the OU Movement student organization, and after that, I have been able to use the dance studios at Putnam Hall to train. I was also invited to teach and perform in dance conferences and festivals next spring. In short, my body experience has allowed me to overcome spatial restrictions and has opened new opportunities for me in terms of social mobility.

Nicola de Martini Ugolotti and Eileen Moyer’s article ‘If I climb a wall of ten meters’: capoeira, parkour and the politics of public space among (post) migrant youth in Turin, Italy also addresses these experiences. They conducted ethnographic research in Turin, Italy, about the experiences of migrant youth who face the incertitude to abandon the country because of their migratory status. In short, they argue that this marginalized community uses their bodies and practices to reappropriate public spaces and challenge “dominant visions about what constitutes the public, how it should be used and by whom.” (2016, p. 188).

Finally, the video I posted here of myself practicing capoeira in front of the Alumni Gateway at College Green is a performance of empowerment and identity. I am wearing one of my OU t-shirts and moving with capoeira in an iconic OU place. This can relate to the ideas we discussed on how our bodies are places where we create identity and a sense of belonging, and, at the same time, I am reframing my understanding of the use of public space. I hope you find this post useful to think about these concepts related to personal experiences.

Work Cited: De Martini Ugolotti, N., & Moyer, E. (2016). ‘If I climb a wall of ten meters’: capoeira, parkour and the politics of public space among (post) migrant youth in Turin, Italy. Patterns of Prejudice. 50(2), 188-206, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2016.1164435.

Criminal Minds Gentrification Episode

 This week we had to read an article that came out in 2004 called, Beyond Gentrification: Mobilizing Communities and Claiming Space, written by James C. Fraser. The article is about the gentrification in cities like Washington D.C. and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Within those cities the article wrote about the violence that occured because of gentrification.  While reading this article, I would keep on getting reminded of an episode of Criminal Minds. Criminal Minds is about the Behavior Analyst Unit team of the FBI and they go to mostly different places in the United States saving crimes. The episode that it kept reminding me of is in the fifth season and episode four called Hopeless. The episode starts with some vandalism in a neighborhood in Washington D.C. area then it escalates to two couples being brutally murdered. It then shows the killers afterwards and they are watching the video that one of them took during the kill. The killers are a group of three guys that live and work together. Where the killers work is as construction workers so not only are they getting slowly forced out with gentrification but they are building the homes that are replacing their neighborhood. Their next murder is after one of them was scolded at work for not having more of the house build. After being scolded, that night the group went out and murdered a random waitress and her boyfriend. The next murder is bartender and a customer at the bar. The customer's hands were nailed to the bar by a nail gun. The team also finds their first killing at this time since one of the members of the team thought about the vandalism that was occured and remembered a new townhouse being vandalised but one room. Once some of the team got there, they were able to open one of the walls and find their first killing. Knowing that the killers work in construction they were able to build a profile and catch the killers. I believe that this episode is a perfect example of the violence that gentrification causes. Not everyone is going to brutally murder people but shows how angry the residents are.

Article: https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet02-xythos.content.blackboardcdn.com/5c1270dbb5a74/8277643?X-Blackboard-Expiration=1635271200000&X-Blackboard-Signature=610jh8GM9ENSccLSx7F5kw%2BG066yaxNdEaxe%2FRzJdj8%3D&X-Blackboard-Client-Id=100342&response-cache-control=private%2C%20max-age%3D21600&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27beyond%2520gentrification.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20211026T120000Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAZH6WM4PL5SJBSTP6%2F20211026%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=244ffab12ee037c9f3e90e8355b9de85adc4f7e947d31b062a22e34e78cb68f6

Summary of episode: https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Turner%27s_Group

How Cars Changed America

 

The Cross Bronx Expressway, 2021. Image Source:  Eyewitness ABC 7 NY, WABC-TV. 

The automobile is a wonderful invention--it really is. It grants the user a level of freedom unprecedented in human history, and, incidentally, equally unprecedented opportunity. With a car, you can travel a thousand miles in 24 hours without adhering to any set plan or schedule. Car ownership allows an individual to live wherever he or she wants irrespective of commute distance or access to public transportation. It is little wonder that much of American planning during the Inter-War and Cold War decades centered on maximizing the automobile's strengths and minimizing its shortcomings. Its strengths, speed and independence, are maximized through the proliferation of faster roadways and more of them. Its shortcomings, large size and fuel cost, are minimized through the proliferation of parking lots and gasoline subsidies. Consequently, the automobile is King in America, as is the motorist, and it is that fact that has devastated American society.

    If the motorist is King, what then is the pedestrian, cyclist and passenger? Peasants, really. My father once said to me, as we in the car passed a pedestrian walking in the ditch alongside Columbus Road, "If you want to look poor in America, walk anywhere." In this country, the streets are for cars and trucks, while pedestrians--or heaven forbid cyclists--are imposers. And if everyone drives a car, why bother making a special effort to ensure the roads are accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians? After all, they still have the right to walk/bike along the side of the road (if they are comfortable with being about a yard away from 24 to 1,100 thousand kg*m/s of momentum flying by*) (unless it is a freeway, where pedestrians and cyclists are forbidden). And why bother with public transit? Kids have school buses, and do kids really need to be able to go anywhere besides school and home? And heaven forbid anyone one be a "Jay Walker"; it is only natural that a child's life depend on careful adherence to rules he does not understand, and it is only natural that people be forced to walk hundreds of yards out of their way to a crosswalk in order to get across a 50 foot stretch of pavement (or at least, such thinking has been natural, in America, since the 1920s, when motor companies ran a smear campaign against Jay Walkers). 

    The fact is, we live in a country where a car is not a luxury but a necessity. Driving does not open up opportunities here--rather, not driving is what closes them. We Americans live in a world where those who cannot drive--the very old, the very young, the very poor and the disabled--are socially disenfranchised by the American fetish for personally owned vehicles (POVs).

    On the other hand, the vast majority of Americans are motorists, so does that count for nothing? Since 80% of America's labor force drives to work, and another 10% hitches a ride in a friend's POV, can it not be said that "car-first" policies are good for America as a whole? If we are talking about something that is meant to benefit 90% of America, could the Devil's advocate not say that it may be worth it, if only in an insensitive, Machiavellian way?

    No. Putting cars first helps nobody, not even car owners. By encouraging (often to the point of outright forcing) more and more people to drive, which is what these policies end up doing, government authorities have made transport easier for no one. The fact is, people take a mile when you give them an inch. That explains why parking and freeway lanes are far more abundant in America than, say, Germany, and yet there is no significant difference in ease of parking or traffic congestion. In fact, cars often end up being slower than the alternatives, at least statistically. For example, 80% of Ohioans drive to work, for an average commute time of 25 minutes. In Athens, only 50% of people drive to work/class, for an average commute time of 14 minutes. And what are the respective social experiences? The pedestrian sees other people, hears other conversations, interacts amicably (and sometimes belligerently) with others in person, and the same could be said for transit passengers and, to a lesser degree, cyclists. Meanwhile the motorist is at best isolated and at worst frustrated and enraged. And usually stuck in traffic and/or fretting over where to find a parking spot.

    All of this is to say nothing of the storm water, water pollution, air pollution, noise pollution and CO2 emissions a country of cars produces. Since these are not directly social issues, I will not go into them. I apologize for going on so long; I hope it wasn't a boring read.

Afterword: I should clarify that I myself am a motorist. Also, I lived in Germany for one year, during which time I used public transit almost exclusively (but still was exposed to automobiles). I know I can come off as sounding anti-car or worse anti-American, but this is not really true. On that note, I focus pretty much exclusively on the US, but much of what I am saying is also true with respect to Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, S. Korea, etc. I just would rather not talk too much about places with which I am less familiar.

*Calculations based on a compact car going 40 MPH vs an 18-wheeler going 70 MPH.

I direct the readers to the following resources:

https://proxy.library.ohio.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00572a&AN=alice.b5509644&site=eds-live&scope=site

This should (hopefully) take you to ALICE's listing for Citizen Jane, a documentary that details Jane Jacobs' fight against, among other things, the automobile. If you have limited time, I recommend you watch at least 43:00 to 44:00 and 1:07:45 to 1:16:00. I also recommend 59:00 to 1:07:45, but that part doesn't really have anything to do with roads. Basically, I just recommend watching the whole thing, if you have time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_3c3wqPsJo

This is a YouTube video explaining the origins of "Jay Walking" as a social construct. It's quite fun and interesting to watch.

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/

This is where my statistics came from. It's just the US Census Bureau.

A Selective Memorialization of the Past in Post-Genocide Cambodia

    In high school and college, I had the study tours to S21 and Cheung Ek, also known as Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields respectively, once or twice every 3 or 6 months. Sometimes, they would bring us to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, also known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, where they tried former members of the Khmer Rouge. To a naïve kid like me, the most exciting part about the tours those days was when I got to skip classes and hang out with my friends on the bus to the museums and during the tour, where we would chitchat and scare each other.

   Having lost close family members to the genocide myself, I understand firsthand why memorialization is important to the reconciliation of Cambodian people with the genocide. When people ask about Cambodia, I would begin with the geographical location of Cambodia using Southeast Asia as a reference, then proceed to the population size just to show we are a small country, and when all of that do not make sense, I would resort to the topic of Khmer Rouge. To make it more relevant, however exaggerated, I would call it the “Cambodian Holocaust.” I feel as if saying that would make them suddenly interested in learning more about Cambodia, or at least sympathize with where I come from. I feel as if that was the only highlight about Cambodia. I think this Khmer Rouge narrative I always bring up is also socially constructed, and it is influenced by how Cambodia, as a country, is perceived by other people and (re)framed in the media, pop culture. 

    

    Compared to ESMA, the most known detention center used to empower the civil-military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983), I believe that S21 and the Killing Fields in Cambodia could have done better than just overly portraying the physical horror, show-cased skulls and human remains, which the reading conceptualizes as commodifying the victimhood (Tyner et al., 2012). The same reading posits that the principle aim of the memorials is to educate future generations and to shape a sense of shared experience, while at other memorials, the purpose is to free people from guilt and reconcile with the past. 

    

    How does memorialization of physical horror and violence contribute to the healing of Cambodian people over the pains of being tortured and of losing their family members, and more so, how does it contribute to the reconciliation process and absolving guilt? Sirik (2020) explains that only a version of the past that aligns with political agenda of those in power gets represented in the memorialization, and if that is the case, it only perpetuates fears and trauma among survivors and future generations. 

    For instance, in 1997 when the civil war broke out, that same morning, I could see fatigue and extreme fear in my parents’ faces as the scene of the genocide apparently struck them again. I was too young to remember anything – naïve and ignorant. I enjoyed seeing the flames and pitch-black smoke coming from the nearby gas station. All I heard was “hurry, pack your stuff, and we leave the city.” The memory was fresh and vivid as it was just 20 years apart from the genocide. Not surprisingly, the occurrence of the social unrest or political turmoil sets to motion the possibility of another genocide like that in the mid-1970s. In this case, what does this memorialization produce? Fear or peace? Aspect of the past is chosen carefully and crafted clandestinely for the memorialization, so it could serve a mind control machine.

    Dwyer and Alderman (2008) suggest three approaches to studying memorial landscape and how politically contestable nature of place shapes the collective memory. In terms of text, the story of the victims is told and displayed graphically with a lack of context of the Khmer Rouge history. Additionally, the post-Khmer Rouge regime was justified through the homogenous narrative that they had saved millions of Cambodian people from the mass killing. In terms of arena, the contentious nature of the memorials (both S21 and the Killing Fields) lies in the debate of the commodities of victimhood and human remains (Disney-fied). Moreover, the same memorials could be perceived differently at different scale from individual to family and country scale, and whose story is told – the former regime members or the victims (Dwyer & Alderman, 2008). In addition, how the memorials are perceived is also a reflection of who we are, and it differs potentially in terms of life stage, age gap and level of education. In terms of performance, the memorials serve as the profit-making venture for international tourists. At the site, the regime survivors give firsthand testimony of the genocide, and there are books about Khmer Rouge history for sale (Dwyer & Alderman, 2008).  

    S21 and the Killing Fields museums have many memories, and the questions in which memories are promoted and neglected is a political question (Cresswell, 2004). While the memorial is geared towards international tourists and economic profits, the portrayal of show-cased skulls, instruments of torture and physical horror promotes the political messages and goals (Tyner et al., 2012). The authors emphasize that the lack of education on Khmer Rouge history, coupled with the prevalent exposure to the atrocious aspect of the past, has made many Cambodian youth live in fear, disbelief, and denial, and they are constantly torn by the question “why did Khmer kill Khmer” (Tyner et al., 2012). That is true. Every time I visit those memorials, I am struck by this heavy denial as to “why Khmer killed Khmer?” Was it classism? Geopolitical and ideological warfare? My grandpa, who was a medical doctor, was one of those who got tortured to death by the regime. According to my mom, my grandpa was tied to a banana tree, and knowing that he does not smoke cigarettes, they made him smoke a bunch, apparently a whole pack of cigarettes in one go, that he suffocated to death after a few hits. Why him? Why an innocent medical doctor who saves lives?    

    In the attempt to address the gap in Tyner et al.’s literatures (2012), a group of scholars from the Department of Media and Communication in Cambodia have come together to create a project called “Mapping Memories Cambodia” (hereafter MMC) to memorialize the unremarked, non-active sites during the Khmer Rouge. MMC is a mobile app and website that tells place-based stories and historical events told by survivors, experts, and historians in multimedia format. The goal of the project, in relation to Tyner et al.’s article (2012), is to transform the many unremarked sites into remarked and active memorials like S21 and the Killing Fields, which is fascinating.  

Khmer Rouge related movies you should check out if interested 

Sources cited: 

Cresswell, T. (2004). Defining place. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: 

     Blackwell Ltd, 12.

Dwyer, O. J., & Alderman, D. H. (2008). Memorial landscapes: Analytic questions and

     metaphors. GeoJournal, 73(3), 165–178.

Sirik, S. (2020). Memory construction of former Khmer Rouge cadres: Resistance to 

     dominant discourses of genocide in Cambodia. Journal of Political Power, 13(2), 

     233–251. 

Tyner, J. A., Alvarez, G. B., & Colucci, A. R. (2012). Memory and the everyday 

     landscape of violence in post-genocide Cambodia. Social & Cultural Geography, 

     13(8), 853–871.

http://mappingmemoriescambodia.com/fbclid=IwAR2c7K9u1HMwBD_

     rYyJkrIETxqxoZX9o03gXwwGUBWgIxmDPl_xGuANAdUI

https://tpocambodia.org/khmer-rouge-survivors/