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Melissa Begey: POLITICAL ETIOLOGY

This image is quite literally ethnographic in that it is a graphic rendering based on Sherine Hamdy's ethnographic fieldwork on dialysis patients in Egypt. What I find most ethnographically compelling about this image is its ability to capture the complex social, political, and environmental factors that play into an ethnograpic subjects lived experience with kidney failure. Despite this complexity, however, the image provides one with the option to narrow their focus - to quite literally follow the lines of kidney falure through medical tubes.

Melissa Begey: POLITICAL ETIOLOGY

In having briefly discussed this image with Sherine Hamdy, I would add the importance of the electricity lines to this image as indexes of frequent "brown" outs, in which electrical power is reduced or restricted based on availability in a given area. This type of power outage is particularily detrimental to patients on Kidney dialysis as it can greatly impact their treatment when  a dialysis machine looses power. 

Political Etiology: Kara Miller

What this image makes clear and contemplative are the connections, interactions, and interfaces of contamination in the human body. Through what the makers refer to as, "feedback loops," this image illustrates not only how toxic environments are created, but also hoe those get into the body. I believe this image shows quite successfully the flesh as pumped with chemicals and the clouds of pollution that loom above a rather dystopian landscape.

Political Etiology: Kara Miller

What this image makes clear and contemplative are the connections, interactions, and interfaces of contamination in the human body. Through what the makers refer to as, "feedback loops," this image illustrates not only how toxic environments are created, but also hoe those get into the body. I believe this image shows quite successfully the flesh as pumped with chemicals and the clouds of pollution that loom above a rather dystopian landscape.The image provides a felt sense of infrastructures and their failings.

Political Etiology: Kara Miller

What this image makes clear and contemplative are the connections, interactions, and interfaces of contamination in the human body. Through what the makers refer to as, "feedback loops," this image illustrates not only how toxic environments are created, but also how those get into the body. I believe this image shows quite successfully the flesh as pumped with chemicals and the clouds of pollution that loom above a rather dystopian landscape.The image provides a felt sense of infrastructures and their failings.