Five Star Geographies

  For our “Corporeal Marker” project we chose to use a pollution mask. Our first concern was not to choose a marker that could be culturally inappropriate or offensive for other students. Our next concern was the time the marker was required to be used, therefore it had to be something physically comfortable and easy to move. Pollution masks are devices commonly used in highly developed and polluted cities in the Global North; especially in Asia, becoming part of the imaginary foreigners have of its citizens. Recently the use of pollution masks has become more frequent in rapid growth cities, many of them in Latin America (e.g. Mexico DF). In Athens context, or even in the national one, the use of pollution masks is not usual and is an element that can put anyone out of place. We wore our corporeal marker in different situations, hours and places; in-group and individually. We recorded our individual and group experiences using text in individual journals and, for the last phase...

Makenzie McGuire Geography Corporeal Marker Journal Group When we wore the mask as a group; At crowded places on campus.    I think people were confused when they saw us.    Minimal eye-contact (Even when I would try pursuing eye-contact purposefully)   Reminded me of the AIDS movement/ pandemic from the 80’s and made me wonder if observers were thinking about what disease we could be carrying and how it could affect them.   Did the mask invoke fear because of that? Pity? Did they see us as lesser human beings because of our assumed “ailment”?   Similar to physical  disability . They barely wanted to make eye-contact let alone talk to us. Individual When I wore the mask individually;  On my walks to and from class. I don’t think it had as big of an impact as when we were all together as a group.   It’s more out of the norm to see a group of people that aren’t fitting into proper societal ro...