Description
In this essay, I will analyze some images that depict the coast as a place of toxicity and risk. These images taken together index different meanings of toxicity--environmental toxicity due to sea-level rise, flood-risk, to geo-political control over oceanic spaces. This is reflected in visualizations produced by journalists, bureaucrats, environmentalists, and researchers. This essay considers these produced visualizations as materially and discursively producing the coast as a place where multi-scaled toxicities are at work. My focus is on both how the coast is toxic, as well as how it is discursively constructed into a toxic place.