The artifact talks about processes of decontamination of area where there is thin distinction between forest and farms. Moreover, it furthers the understandings of histories and indeginous knowledge about the contamination and decontamination of the areas. Here, the ideas of toxcities are rooted in the local knowelges and histories.
The caption is elaborate enough, however, the narratives of toxcities can be made explicit.
The images is cpatured by the ethnographer and the prespective of the image depicts the contestations between the wild and not wild, the scale of the expanse, and the difficult terrain of the region.
According to me, the image is aptly suggestive of the narrative associated with it.
The artifact highlights rooted understanding contamination and decontamination in the region. Moreover, the it suggests the differences in the understanding of toxicities among the locals and the governmet agencies.
This visualization and the caption elicits the complex terrain of toxicity in Fukushima. The ethnographer probes into the ways in which scientists understand and measure toxicity, as well as the way in which the definitions become specific to the place and terrain. It would be interesting to know more about what the significance of wild vs farmed plants is in understanding toxicity.
The image is created by the ethnographer. It shows a lush green forest, which seems counterintuitive to the kind of toxicity and contamination in the place. It also shows two humans in the forest, standing at two different locations, and seemingly separated spatially--a forest and a clearing. It would be interesting to highlight the toxicity at play through the image some more. Is there a way to show the liminality of farm vs wild, and contamination vs decontaminated spaces across the space and in terms of depth?
The caption highlights interesting aspects about toxicity and its measurement. Some arguments which could be ethnographically fleshed out--the idea of knowledge about the terrain shaping the knowledge about toxicity is a compelling one--could this be an argument about multispecies encounters where human knowledge about toxicity emerges in relation to nonhuman materialities like the height of the root, etc.?
