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Page description: This protocol page invites readers to explore urban dust, encouraging an open-minded approach that goes beyond viewing it solely as a toxic concern. The content is arranged in a linear order from top to bottom.
This protocol invites participants to learn about and find kinship with urban dust. Dust particles are a ubiquitous presence in urban areas: they are lifted by the wind, they float in the air, and they settle on surfaces. Urban dust contains various chemical contaminants and plays a key role in urban pollution. The inhalation of small dust particles can lead to respiratory and heart problems. Furthermore, dust can cover plants and thus affect their prosperity and growth. The deposition of chemicals and heavy metals can exert toxic effects on plants, animals, and humans. Building on the concept of ‘chemical kinship’ that has been theorized by interdisciplinary scholars Angeliki Balayannis and Emma Garnett, this protocol probes what finding good kinship with ‘bad’ dust might involve. The protocol encourages an expansive, open-minded approach that will extend our relationships of care and responsibility to potentially harmful and hazardous material entities. Therefore, it engages with urban particulate matter without reducing it to a toxic object of concern. Rather than adopting such a reductivist approach, the protocol keeps the lines of inquiry open and investigates possibilities for affection and sympathetic action.
whom is this protocol for?
The protocol is designed for small to medium groups of participants, ranging from two to twenty-four people.
what is required to carry it out?
The protocol takes place outdoors. Participants are asked to come prepared for an urban walk.
how long does it take?
The protocol takes approximately two to four hours.
Urban dust consists of fine particles of solid matter from various sources. It can be atmospheric or wind-borne dust traveling from such distant places as the Sahara desert, the world’s biggest producer of dust. It can come from materials found in the local environment, such as solid particles discharged from vehicles, construction particles, soil minerals, plant pollen, human hair, dead skin, animal fur, or microplastics from degraded textile fibers. Urban dust serves as an important archive of life in industrialized countries. Moreover, it is one of the most informative indicators of the ecological state of urban environments.
Urban dust contains heavy metals and metalloids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, all of which are often found in environmentally hazardous concentrations. Exposure to these chemicals can lead to health risks including allergic reactions, pneumonia, asthmatic attacks, carcinogenic and mutagenic effects, and endocrine disruption. Dust covering plants and trees hinders their growth and fecundity. The accumulation of dust in the atmosphere may cause light scattering, leading to the changes in the weather patterns and climate.
The protocol takes the form of an urban walkshop (walking workshop). While walking, participants focus on the following:
breathing deeply
Participants are encouraged to breathe deeply, especially when walking down a busy road. They are asked to pay attention to what comes in with each breath and what comes out. What does breathing polluted air feel like? Is it relaxing? Is it irritating? Do participants experience any shortness of breath or difficulty breathing? Do they enjoy breathing this air, or does it make them feel anxious and worried?
collecting dust
During the walk, participants stop to inspect surfaces covered with dust, such as roads, pavement, construction and architectural elements, or the leaves of plants and trees. During their examination, participants touch the surfaces, accumulating an increasingly thick layer of dirt on their hands. What does the dust feel like on the hands? Does it irritate them? Does it produce pleasurable sensations and feelings? Do they enjoy it, or does it make them uncomfortable and anxious?
discussing the ways in which dust is encountered in daily life
Participants engage in discussions about encounters with dust in everyday life, both indoors and outdoors. They explore the material and metaphorical significance of dust in their experiences and surroundings. What are the dust-related material circulations, interactions, and transformations in which participants are involved? What stories and metaphorical uses pertaining to dust do they find relatable?
Ideally, the walk concludes at a location with outdoor water access, such as a beach, riverbank, or a square with a fountain. Alternatively, participants can bring water with them. Participants come together and exchange ideas. They take turns sharing what they learned during the walkshop from breathing, touching dusty surfaces, and talking to one another. The session ends with participants washing their hands together.
Image description: Photograph of participants' dust-covered hands, taken during the walkshop in Brno on November 7, 2022. Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1609630/2671403#tool-2674117 to see the photograph.
whom is this protocol for?
This follow-up protocol is for the participants of the walkshop.
what is required to carry it out?
The materials required are a whiteboard or large sheets of paper, markers, and tape. If participants decide to stay outdoors, a pen and paper will suffice.
how long does it take?
This follow-up protocol takes two to three hours.
instructions
One participant takes on the role of facilitator and introduces the group to concepts of bodies of water, hydrocommons, and hydrofeminism developed by theorist Astrida Neimanis.
bodies of water
For Astrida Neimanis, water, more than any other element, entangles human bodies with more-than-human worlds. With water comprising two-thirds of the human body, we in many ways inhabit watery milieus. We are water, and we depend on water for our survival.
hydrocommons
The term ‘commons’ refers to the common wealth—the totality of the world's material riches to be shared together, mostly comprising such natural resources as the air, water, soil, or seed. The term has been used to critique the enclosure of agricultural land, pastures, and forests that were claimed as private property for private use over the course of several hundred years. The concept of hydrocommons as utilized by Neimanis pertains to planetary waters. It spans the oceans, rivers, and lakes that surround us, as well as the water that makes up much of our bodies. It acts as a framework for rethinking our ethical responsibility toward the many other bodies of water that flow through us, replenish us, and draw on us as their resource.
hydrofeminism
Hydrofeminism is a feminist perspective that bears on ideas of embodiment and environmental justice. It examines the philosophical and ethical implications of where our water comes from, where it goes, and what happens along the way. Hydrofeminism considers the stakes of the intense interdependency of bodily and planetary waters, questioning what it means to be connected, indebted, and accountable to other planetary bodies of water. Furthermore, it considers how we might address acute planetary water crises (e.g., clean freshwater scarcity, floods and drought, groundwater contamination, ocean acidification) from the perspective of our wet constitution.
Building on their experience and knowledge, and drawing inspiration from Neimanis's conceptualizations, participants theorize related concepts of bodies of air, aerocommons, and aerofeminism. Participants produce mindmaps and discuss their ideas in smaller groups of two to four people, before sharing the discussion results with the different groups and noting them on a whiteboard or sheets of paper. The topics and questions participants may address are the following:
What sets of planetary assemblages emerge if we imagine ourselves as bodies of air?
What does air bring into contact?
What are the different ways in which we are all involved in airy interactions and circulations?
What are the power relations that circulate in these currents?
To what processes of intake, transformation, and exchange do the concepts of bodies of air and aerocommons point?
What are the different ways in which air can serve as an archive from which we can learn?
What have we done to the air, and what has it given back to our bodies?
What are our material and emotional relationships to polluted air?
In what ways do our relationships with the air and the more-than-human aerocommons challenge ideas of anthropocentrism and the privileging of the human as the main (or sole) site of embodiment?
What are the philosophical and ethical implications of our air’s origin and destination, as well as the things that happen along the way?
What are the stakes of the intense interdependency of bodily and planetary air? What does it mean to be connected, indebted, and accountable to other planetary bodies of air?
By the end of the session, participants offer agreed-on preliminary definitions of the concepts of bodies of air, aerocommons, and aerofeminism. The aim is for the definitions to identify the common ground that they share with Neimanis’s conceptualizations, as well as to emphasize what new possibilities they open for theorizing and actioning the figurations pertaining to the element of air.
follow-up protocol
dust prints
In this follow-up protocol, participants create prints using the dust they gathered on their hands during the walkshop. Dust marks the temporality of matter through the material process of accumulation. Furthermore, the composition of urban dust varies significantly between different sites and even within the same site over time. Therefore, the dust prints made by participants capture a unique compilation of time, matter, movement, collectivity, and interaction.
whom is this protocol for?
This is a follow-up protocol for the participants of the walkshop. It should be carried out after the walk but before participants wash their hands.
what is required to carry it out?
The required materials are paper to make prints on and a spray bottle filled with water.
how long does it take?
The follow-up protocol takes ten to twenty minutes, including time for drying.
Image description: Scanned image of dust handprints created by walkshop participants. Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1609630/2671403#tool-2674121 to see the image.