Friedman 1 Maya Friedman Critical Worldviews II Site Visit Critical Reflection: Chichen Itza
Overview
“Because I take feminism very seriously, I have even more trouble branding myself as a feminist” writes Pilar Villela Mascaro. “I support most of the feminist causes. But where does that place me?” (Mascaro) As of late this quote has lingered with me because I’ve been creating work about women’s sexuality and health, but with less regard for using feminist research methodologies to arrive at my final destination – igniting a small, but unpleasant design crisis for myself. As Villela begins to hint at, does supporting feminist causes by advancing conversations about women’s issues qualify itself as feminist design or does the practice itself also need to follow a feminist methodology?
This broad question is why I chose to document the archeological Mayan site of Chichen Itza using Shaowen Bardzell’s six qualities of feminist interaction. I knew documenting Chichen Itza from a feminist perspective would be a challenge since employing participatory design was limited without building trusting relationships with the people I chose to interact with. However, I felt like it was important for me as a designer to consider how to apply feminist theory, even in the face of serious restrictions on my time, language and ability for relationship building. For me, the focus on using feminist research methodologies in the face of limitations dove tails nicely with
Friedman 2 designing in a school setting, where working directly with and embodying participants is not always an option due to similar time and relationship building constraints.
The second reason I chose to document Chichen Itza from a feminist point of view came from pre-visit research on gender relationships within the Mayan culture as well as the current context of Chichen Itza as a major tourist destination ripe with complex social power relations. The Maya did hold roles traditionally associated with their gender, but research has noted the importance of those roles may have differed from our views today. For example, in many contexts handwork and craft is considered a hobby or a lesser-than contribution to the economy, but for the Mayan, female-driven cloth production contributed greatly to the economy of Chichen Itza. In the article Cloth Production and Economic Intensification in the Area Surrounding Chichen Itza the author notes, “it’s been argued that despite being situated in the domestic arena, women's productive roles were integral to state expansion” (Ardren). Another author notes, “our research has shown a dramatic increase in the presence of spindle whorls suggests that the production of textiles was of significant import to the political economy of Chichen Itza” (Castañeda).
Today, the idea of power and gender is also prevalent at Chichen Itza. Given the explosion of tourists to this site, understanding power dynamics at foreign monuments as tourists becomes territory for examination. One journal detailed the rapid increase in vendors, noting “in 1983, an invasion by 300 vendors of food, beverage and artisanry began of the archaeological touristic site of Chichén Itzá, México” (Journal of Latin American Anthropology).
Friedman 3 Initial Questions
Before documenting Chichen Itza, I had two goals: I was interested in developing a feminist read on the vendor section of the site, while simultaneously developing my own process for research that stayed true to feminist tenants, but didn’t rely on “working with people” as my main source of information gathering. Below are some of the questions I considered: •
What can I learn about the social and gender forces that are conditioning the organization of the vendor market at Chichen Itza? While any concrete answers to this question would be impossible to gather onsite, I wanted to make note of observations for future research.
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What does the spatial organization of this site tell us about power relations between tourist and vendors?
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What could I learn about Chichen Itza “once [I] [started] from a place of acknowledging difference in our persons, our histories, our bodies, and our aesthetics? (Rizvi)
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What are ways to employ a feminist methodology without participatory research?
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How do you employ feminist research design methodologies with severe temporal and language limitations?
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What are ways to analyze the site beyond feminism, but with an intersectional lens layered on top? “Oppressions of gender, race or class, among others cannot be understood separately.” (Martins)
Friedman 4 Documentation & Processing
My documentation and processing strategies of the visit to Chichen Itza were inspired by four main qualities of feminist design, two outlined from Shaowen Bardzell: Advocacy and Pluralism, one from Anthropologist, Uzma Z. Rizvi: Using the Self to Recognize Systems of Power and finally one from Luiza Prado de O. Martins: Intersectional Feminism. Bardzell also brings up thoughts around the relationship of gender to spatial organization and I touch on this as well.
Using Advocacy and The Self to Understand Power Dynamics of a Space In Bardzell’s “Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining” one of the main strategies discussed is participatory design, which she describes as “empathic user research that avoids the scientific distance that cuts the bonds of humanity between researcher and subject” (Bardzell, 1306). As such, my initial inclination was to propose a strategy to try and destabilize the power dynamic between myself and the vendors to achieve a more equal, participatory approach to research. Early, flawed documentation proposals included trying to form relationships with vendors via conversational tactics, but upon deeper consideration, I felt that the most feasible and ethical way to begin to understand systems of power at Chichen Itza was the feminist quality Bardzell describes as advocacy. She writes, “On the one hand, feminist interaction design should seek to bring about political emancipation and not just keep up with it. At the same time, it should also force designers to question their own position (Bardzell, 1306). Anthropologist, Uzma Z. Rizvi seconds this idea proposed by Bardzell. In the article
Friedman 5 Decolonization as Care Rizvi writes, “It is important to understand that recognizing systems of power and one’s place in them is a tool that can be utilized” (Rizvi, 87). I had been hesitant to employ “advocacy” or rely on the self as a tool for documentation because I felt uncertain on how to find the boundary between using my experience to segue into a critical reflection rather than a personal account of a trip to a historical monument. How do we use, but not impose our values and identity in a critical design reflection? I decided to move forward regardless. As such, I spent approximately 30 minutes jotting down, in list form, moments where I was personally aware of a power dynamic around the main architectural site, El Castillo. The main interaction I was focused on was between myself and the vendors, but in my mind, this was an open prompt for any interaction between myself and a system, vendor, another tourist, etc.
This first documentation strategy led to the design of a personal power map of Chichen Itza, which provided a more critical reflection of how consistently power is shifting given our intersectional identities, even in the space of a few hours. While I used myself as part of the research, this strategy was purposeful as it eschewed ideas of a scientific process as the only reliable form of knowledge making.
As part of my processing, I organized my personal power map into three main categories of experiences. It includes moments where I felt: •
My body held power over others or vice versa due to my identification as a white, young, female, foreigner.
Friedman 6 •
I held knowledge that others didn’t and vice versa (language, ticketing process, etc.)
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Visceral discomfort given my gender, age or appearance
Figure 1: Personal Power Map
Friedman 7 After I landed on the categories of power for my map, I began to reflect on the complexity of this personal power mapping experience: •
As an on-site decision during my 30-minute “power map walk,” I chose to test out how I could use my body to elicit a response from vendors as an act of manipulating and exploring power dynamics. To do this, I chose to strategically linger in front of tables at intervals of one second, five seconds and 10 seconds. Consistently five and 10 seconds garnered a selection of responses, whereas one second often garnered an “Hola” or nothing at all. The complexity of this designed interaction struck me. My initial inclination in doing this was designing a moment where I could explore the power dynamic between tourist and vendors by utilizing my identity as a female tourist. But, in fact, I caught myself in the act of making an assumption about my identity in relation to theirs. In some of the vendors eyes, I may have been an anonymous potential statistic, participating in a tactical system of selling that I would never fully be able to understand. The little bait and tackle plan I had devised in my head was far too simplistic and antifeminist, but it provided me a new perspective: the importance of designing rules for yourself as a designer to capture and reflect on your own assumptions before working directly with people. This lingering exercise pushed me to think about the intersecting systems of power at play: my own identity as a foreigner entangled in an economic system of selling that was out of my knowledge space. In the book Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization and Cultural Identity, the author talks about the complex system at play in the selling of goods at Chichen Itza that considers both the vendor and tourist, “The goal is to sell, but how they
Friedman 8 do it is tactical, as they rely on trying to figure out ways to hook the tourists and outcompete each other. They attend to how long a potential buyer’s eyes linger on an item, who is with the buyer, the age and sex of the buyer, the way the buyer is dress, and the buyer’s level of Spanish” (Little, 111). While the system I constructed made assumptions about my own power, it pushed me into a more self-aware territory about my biases. If I were to practice a participatory approach at Chichen Itza in future design projects, I’d have a better understanding of the pre-conceived biases I had about the power dynamic between vendor and tourist.
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My awareness of having and losing power shifted from table to table. After I would deploy my “linger” strategy at one table, I would notice the ease with which the power dynamic in the tourist – vendor relationship was destabilized when vendors directly targeted my age and gender as an attempt to attract me towards their tables. In a period of two hours, I experienced approximately ten instances of co-opting of my romantic status as a way to sell me goods. These include calls for me to buy gifts for my boyfriend, calling me Bonita and the vendors telling me that they were available to date. The tone of this interaction, while seemingly playful, prompts questions around how to be cognizant of rapidly shifting power dynamics in short periods of time and our subsequent response. Rizvi writes, “intersectionality recognizes that in moving between the lateral and hierarchical modes of being, one must be cognizant and thoughtful about how in each context there may be differences to take into account” (Rizvi). My initial inclination was to
Friedman 9 become angry, as I might in the United States. I still felt anger, but I was able to think about the Rizvi’s notes on context. What systems are at play at Chichen Itza that are driving this form of harassment as opposed to what I might experience at home? Are these moments where the cultural context matters? What are the acceptable gender dynamics at play for vendors that might be culturally different than my own?
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In my field plan, one of the strategies I had proposed was to document merchandise that included sexualized female imagery, phallic sculptures, imagery of traditional male / female roles. Rather than take photographs, I proposed to draw or sculpt the figures out of clay, which I thought would force me to pay more careful attention to the materiality and form of the objects themselves. Originally, this plan was inspired by Bardzell’s feminist strategy “ecology of materials,” which proposes designers consider design artifacts in their broadest context. This proposed plan provided insight different than expected hence why I included it my power map, rather than a section on materials. I was surprised at the ease with which I could sit multiple places near the vendor tables without buying objects and not once was I asked to relocate or move my body elsewhere. What about my identity afforded me free control over a space that was reserved for the vendors? As I went back to consider how I might answer this question, I re-organized the set of photographs I had taken and noticed the perspective of all of them was nearly the same. I had taken every one of my photographs from above or at eye level, whereas the images where I was
Friedman 10 sculpting was the only set of photographs where 1) I was not the photographer and 2) I was sitting down on the ground. In the rules of using camera angles, I recalled high angle shots taken from above are used to make people or things look weaker and less powerful. While only assumptions can be made, it is interesting to reflect on how the simple act of sitting down for an extended period of time rather than standing or walking impacted the relationship between myself and the vendors.
Friedman 11
Figures 2-4: Photographs where I’ve changed my body position and linger time
Vendor Layout and the Gender Politics of Space
Another method I used to unpack the complexity of power dynamics among the vendors was not part of my original plan but was inspired by being onsite. In my first pass through the vendor tables, I noticed one moment where the noise and chaos quieted down and I realized I was at the end of the vendor line. The last table in the row was occupied by women, so in a moment of curiosity, I decided to include in my strategy 20 minutes to walk randomly around the tables leading up to El Castillo to see if there was any pattern of gender and table size between the male and female vendors. In Bardzell’s piece she references the practice of feminist geography, the act of paying attention to gendered divisions in space, so I applied this methodology to my documentation.
Friedman 12 How are table placements and size of tables aligned upon? Is placement random selection or is a system at work between space and gender?
For this particular exercise around mapping the gender dynamics of space, the key points I paid attention to were documenting in further detail the following qualities: •
Gender: Male, female or mixed gender running the table
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Size of table: Large, small or no table (this could’ve been more specific, but for this exercise it seemed enough to start to uncover a pattern)
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General position of vendor: active (selling), standing by goods or sitting.
Friedman 13
Figure 3: Spatial gender mapping of tables leading up to El Castillo
Friedman 14 Upon reviewing and analyzing this documentation, I noticed there was clearly a pattern of gender in the organization of tables on the main strip leading to El Castillo, featuring a majority of male vendors with larger tables. This path is the only area where tourists are required to walk twice, both leaving and exiting the space – there are no alternate routes out, so it might be considered coveted real estate. I also noticed three woman who didn’t have tables at all, but rather were walking around the site selling goods, with no claim over space whatsoever. The hierarchies delineated by table placement, size of table, who ran the table and vendor’s body position all contributed to a system of gender politics and space that opened up deeper questions about the power systems at play between the vendors themselves. In the book, Cultural Tourism in Latin America: The Politics of Space and Imagery, the authors note that even in the early 80s when only 20 vendors existed at the site, gender dynamics affected control of space and goods sold. “While women tended to sell food and fruit, the men sold slushies, newspaper and, especially, the home-made wood carvings” (Ypeij).
Vendor Goods & Intersectionality
Going back and manipulating my data forced to me to confront that feminism alone was not encompassing the strategies I used to collect my information. I was not only documenting with an awareness of my gender, but also my appearance, age, nationality and native language, so this form of analysis was inspired by an intersectional feminist lens. In the article Privilege and Oppression Towards a Feminist Speculative Design, Martins writes about not just the importance of a feminist perspective “but a feminist perspective firmly grounded in the idea of intersectionality: as a strategy for
Friedman 15 understanding how “oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type, and that oppressions work together in producing injustice� (Martins). As part of my process, I took a picture of nearly every table that someone had tried to get me to buy an item and chose to try and process these images onto the chart of intersectionality. I was curious: How are the goods being sold in the space privileging certain identities over others?
Figure 4: White Barbie modeling traditional clothing
Friedman 16
In reviewing this intersectional chart, it is not surprising that many of the goods being sold privilege a more global and western identity. Other items of note not featured here that spark interesting thoughts: Chinese checkers, Chess, a serious of spiritual necklaces and American Snack brands with localized flavors. While interesting, some of these items began to move me away from my focus on feminism. In the future, I’d like to do more work on how to use an intersectional chart as a basis for mapping research findings.
Friedman 17 Applying Pluralism to Analyze Audio Recordings
The final manipulation I carried out was focused the feminist quality of pluralism which Bardzell refers to as “design artifacts that resist any single, totalizing, or universal point of view” (Bardzell, 1305). This idea also has shown up for me most prominently in Donna Haraway’s piece “Situated Knowledge,” where she critiques scientific objectivity and proposes emphasizing “partial perspective[s] as a promise [of] objective vision. (Haraway).
Using the quality of pluralism to design my site visit, I planned to record 30 seconds of field audio, every three minutes, getting as close to the merchandisers table as possible. What methodology could I employ in processing this information that might help me think about the audio environment from multiple perspectives?
At first, I tried parsing the different categories of sounds I heard in the audio according to who was making the sound, but separating the layers was difficult. Instead I put all the tracks into Adobe Audition and created a layered audio experience. This helped me more clearly identify the multiple actors making sound in these tracks. The following three categories were most prominent for me in thinking about situated perspectives:
Birds at Chichen Itza: Most noticeable about my field recordings are the consistent song of birds at Chichen Itza, which I did not notice at all while onsite. This realization pushed me to consider an entirely new form of situated knowledge about the space. What were the bird calls reacting to from their perspective? Does the influx of tourist affect the bird calls or was it a specific time of day, season, weather? Or was this their
Friedman 18 quotidian routine? In retrospect, I could’ve pushed this idea of alternate site readings further. I might have considered recording audio from different standing positions, lying on the ground, putting my phone up higher or standing outside of the main tourist drag. All of these design strategies would have allowed me to create a series of audio recordings that “resisted any single or totalizing universal point of view,� but instead painted a pluralist reading on the space (Bardzell, 1305).
Footsteps: Listening back to my audio, the clearest and most consistent sound was my footsteps. While I was not cognizant of this sonic mark while walking around, it was another marker of a clear, situated point of view, my own. It made me consider the cues in an auditory experience that reveal the perspective of who is doing the recording versus who is being recorded.
Jaguar Whistle: Consistently throughout the recording, I notice the jaguar whistle: a toy created for tourists that emits a unique growl. Every time this whistle was blown in my five minutes of recording, it represented an alternate form of knowledge. The whistle acted as a symbol of the perspective of the vendors, who were paying attention to groups of tourists walking by and blowing it to attract potential buyers. The whistle was also often blown when kids were walking by, which was also another clue as to what the vendors were potentially noticing during the whistling moments I picked up in my recordings.
Friedman 19 Design Discourse & Further Exploration
For my own design practice, this work really pushed me to reflect on questions of how to employ a feminist design methodology when limits are imposed on participatory research.
Some Learned Rules for Myself for Conducting Feminist Onsite Research 1. When Bardzell talks about the six qualities of feminism, she doesn’t touch on how the qualities should intersect. Do they all need to be used at once or can the process be more linear? For me, I began to think about how to use Bardzell’s six qualities of feminist design as both a collective system and a linear system. In this particular project, I imagined that I could conduct feminist design research as a two-part process: designing a system of rules for yourself to enter a space in order to understand yourself as part of a system of power and then begin to build more informed relationships to begin a participatory research process.
2. Recording field audio from different perspectives or taking photographs from different perspectives is a useful and non-intrusive way of capturing pluralist perspectives about a space. In the future, I would encourage myself and other designers to consider being more specific about placement, location and direction of microphone and camera.
3. Mapping yourself as a component of the system you’re studying can be extremely beneficial to conducting feminist research. Bardzell encourages
Friedman 20 “foregrounding questions of cultural difference� (Bardzell 1306) and I felt that my personal power mapping exercise was a success in this way and is a tactic that I will bring into personal design projects in the future.
Friedman 21 References Ardren, Traci, T. Kam Manahan, Julie Kay Wesp, and Alejandra Alonso. “Cloth Production and Economic Intensification in the Area Surrounding Chichen Itza.” Latin American Antiquity 21, no. 3 (2010): 274–89.
Baud, Jan M., and Johanna L. Ypeij. Cultural Tourism in Latin America: the Politics of Space and Imagery. Brill, 2009. Castañeda, Quetzil E. “On the Correct Training of Indio s in the Handicraft Market at Chichén Itzá: Tactics and Tactility of Gender, Class, Race and State.” Journal of Latin American Anthropology 2, no. 2 (2008): 106–43.
Decolonization as Care, in Slow Reader: A Resource for Design Thinking and Practice, edited by Carolyn F. Strauss and Ana Paula Pais. A SlowLab Collaboration with Valiz. pp. 85-95. Amsterdam, Valiz Publishers. 2016
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, Inc, pp.575-599.
Little, Walter E. Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization, and Cultural Identity. University of Texas Press, 2004.
Mascaró, Pilar Villela. “One Eye Closed: An Exercise in Stereoscopy.” e-Flux, www.eflux.com/journal/92/203861/one-eye-closed-an-exercise-in-stereoscopy/.
Friedman 22 Prado L (2014) Privilege and Oppression: Towards a Feminist Speculative Design. http://www.drs2014.org/media/654480/0350-file1.pdf Prado de O.