Postcards are usually sent as to indicate your location while traveling. This got me thinking about the politics of place, thus leading to my subject:
Saying "Greetings from Africa" is like saying "Greetings from North America" -- a pretty worthless statement. A postcard simply from the continent of North America is meaningless because it lumps Panama with Canada, New York City with the Sonoran desert. But does "Greetings from Africa" have the same absurd connotations? To many, I bet not. I've heard multiple people, including here at Brown, refer to Africa, the world's second largest and second most populous continent, as a country.
My postcard is meant to make a statement on misunderstandings, geographic and otherwise, of Africa, as well as low awareness about the world in general. Nothing in the image fits together -- the setting is in Egypt, the boy is Sudanese, giraffes do not live in the Sahara, and tigers don't live in Africa at all. It condenses an entire continent to a few striking, though anatopistic, images, and Africa becomes either exoticized or stigmatized.
Geography is not simply memorizing capitals...I believe an understanding of the vastness and the layout of the world are crucial in understanding our planet's problems. Stereotypical simplifications that reduce 53 countries to a small patchwork of starving children and strange animals is decidedly problematic.
No comments:
Post a Comment