Intervention symposium – ‘Explosive geographies’ | AntipodeFoundation.org
▻http://antipodefoundation.org/2013/05/20/explosive-geographies
On April 15, 2013, two bombs targeting the Boston Marathon exploded on Boylston St, killing three and initiating the United State’s most visible domestic security operation of the decade. Two days later, a fertilizer plant located in the town of West, Texas exploded spectacularly, killing 14 and levelling a significant part of the town. The Boston bombings and the subsequent manhunt were covered non-stop for weeks, while coverage of the West explosion was comparatively sparse. In a posting to the leftgeog listserv, Raju Das asked geographers what connected the two events and how we might explain the discrepancies in media attention. That initial provocation eventually led to this intervention forum which includes all of the participants who responded to the initial questions and others with unique perspectives on how we can better understand crises, violence, and the representational privileging of some deaths over others.