This week in ASTU class we watched the film Through a Blue Lens and connected to Jiwani and Young’s article Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse to conduct a thorough discussion thread on Connect. As well as a very useful UBC Library Research Workshop that provided us with valuable research skills that will be beneficial for the rest of our university career.
To a certain extent, the topic of study among my courses (within global citizen core courses and electives) this week seems to directly and/or indirectly link back to ASTU class, almost as if I never even left the classroom. In Sociology, the term “intersectionality, or the idea that members of any given minority group are affected by the nature of their position in other arrangements of social inequality” (Ritzer and Guppy 335-6) is very relevant towards our study of vulnerable subjects (sex workers and drug addicts of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside). More or less, it is the socially constructed stereotypes often associated with these vulnerable subjects that makes them more criticized and judged by outsiders who don’t understand the realities of their lives. Therefore, when the concept of “parallel lives” came up in Geography class, an immediate connection was sparked as I thought about it in terms of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) and felt the urge to declare it as my topic worth discussing right here right now!
First of all, the concept of “parallel lives” in the context of Geography class was used in the discussion of global tourism. In thinking of tourism there are tourist attractions or beach resorts that are often constructed on the ideal of pure perfection and is made to be a desirable location to go to. However, the idea of parallel lives is that tourism promote to tourists a singular representation of the city (usually the perfect/valuable aspect). In a sense the tourism part is segregated from the rest of the city, creating an illusion that attracts tourists. But it does not accurately display the reality of life for the majority of people living there especially the tourism industry in developing nations.
At the same time, one does not need to look far to find the existence of parallel lives when it exists right here in Vancouver. For example, by looking at Vancouver as a tourist destination there are certain locations and parts of the city that would attract tourists. For them their memory of Vancouver will be based on these tourist attractions and limits them to see only the “perfections” of the city. From a new perspective, tourism from seems to play a role in marginalizing areas of a city while promoting what is deemed as “valuable”. It may not be necessarily problematic that segregation of certain areas exists within Vancouver (and other cities) but rather it is what the impact of segregation has on the people living in marginalized areas that is problematic. Within Vancouver, the marginalized area of DTES is further emphasized by media and news coverage as ” ‘mean streets’ and the women working in those streets [are] drug-addicted sex workers” (Jiwani and Young 897). This stereotypical image cast upon DTES and the people that lives there further enforces segregation and marginalization from the rest of the city. Furthermore, a simple Google image search between “Downtown Vancouver” and “Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside” displays this concept of parallel lives that differentiates the reality of Vancouverites.
Yet, it came as a surprise, when I came across newspaper articles today that featured a proposed city development plan for Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Although, there is great emphasis on the positive aspects that this development plan has for DTES (the area and the people who reside there) in the article, I personally have mixed-feeling towards this plan. Perhaps, since it is still in a planning phase there is a sense of uncertainty of whether or not it can be achieved without several eruption of conflicts between interest groups. Also, with any kind of city development (construction wise), the process would most likely disrupt and affect the everyday lives of those who live there. This is especially true for the homeless population who depend on the streets to make a living and for shelter. Hopefully, along with the city development plan, there will also be certain plans arranged for the welfare of individuals during the course of development. Nonetheless, it is definitely one ideal way to change the stereotypical view of DTES. An ideal worth paying attention to through news coverage (be critical when doing so), and more importantly worth seeing in terms of it becoming a reality for the folks living there.
Emily, I have to agree with what you’ve said, “as if I never even left the classroom”, after reading your blog post I was also able to make connections with the documentary video we watched in Arts Studies and to other topics we were taught in CAP courses such as “intersectionality” and “parallel lives”. Plus, the contrasting images of “Downtown Vancouver” and “Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside” surely made a huge difference in representing these two places within the same space.
Expanding on your ideas and after reading this week ASTU article by Couser, I’m starting to think that the marginalized subjects/ groups living in DTES are “socially defined”. And also tying back to “Race and Ethnicity” in our sociology lecture, the marginalized groups almost seem to be grouped in their own “ethnicity”. In other words, the society is constructing a separate group and labeling them as “addicts” and “sex-workers”. But again, as I argued in my blog post, in conclusion, we were all born as human beings and it is necessary to blur the line between the “us” and “them”.
Hye Ran, you are definitely on point about how we REALLY need to blur the line between the “us” and “them” and become “we”! In one of my previous posts I commented on how the line between private and public for celebrities are blurred with the heavy amount of media coverage that seeks to represent them. It may seem like the media, whether they are reporting on positive or negative issues about the lives of celebrities, they indeed contributing towards the “labelling” of them. At the same time the issue of misrepresentation and “authenticity” are also worth critiquing. That being said, I believe that perhaps the competitive nature of working in the media affect people’s judgement and work ethics. But overall, I think that realm of media and news coverage is worth exploring to find the underlying cause to many of the social issues that arise from it.