Beyond Ruin Porn: Urban Visual Culture and Otherwise Entanglements

• In Event: Methodological Reworlding: Working through (De)Colonial Entanglements

Abstract

Objectives
This presentation examines how visual representations of urban spaces like Detroit function as pedagogical assemblages shaping educational opportunities in marginalized communities. Drawing on posthuman and new materialist frameworks, I analyze how human-nonhuman entanglements produce urban educational ecologies. My objectives are to: (a) critically analyze “ruin porn” as a material-discursive assemblage rendering urban spaces and populations disposable; (b) demonstrate how youth counter-narratives challenge exploitative visual consumerism through posthuman storytelling practices; and (c) propose alternative frameworks recognizing agency of human and nonhuman actors in creating sustainable educational futures.
Theoretical Framework
I employ posthuman and new materialist frameworks intersected with critical race theory. Drawing on Zakiyyah Iman Jackson’s (2020) work on how blackness disrupts the human/animal binary and Katherine McKittrick’s (2021) examination of black geographies as creative resistance sites, I understand urban educational spaces as dynamic assemblages where racialized human, nonhuman, technological, and environmental forces co-constitute learning possibilities. Kate Wells’ (2019) conceptualization of ruin porn as "manipulated and fetishized images" is extended through this racialized posthuman lens to examine how visual representations participate in urban educational ecologies’ ongoing becoming. My approach recognizes how concrete, soil, abandoned buildings, digital technologies, and racialized bodies intra-act to produce educational conditions, challenging colorblind posthuman frameworks.
Methods
My methodology combines posthuman ethnographic approaches with community-based participatory research, attending to agential capacities of human and nonhuman actors in urban ecologies (Springgay & Truman, 2018). I analyzed 100 years of Detroit’s visual representations across three configurations: golden age (1910s-1950s), decay (1960s-2000s), and renewal (2000s-present). Through the “Shifting Urban Narratives” project, I employed collaborative documentary methods with 11 youth fellows, treating cameras and digital technologies as co-participants in knowledge production. Data collection included walking methodologies attending to human-nonhuman encounters (Ingold & Vergunst, 2016), multimedia storytelling workshops foregrounding material agency, and co-creation of counter-narratives challenging anthropocentric assumptions about urban decline.
Data
My data sources include: archival photographs, films, and media representations of Detroit from 1910-2025; youth-created multimedia narratives from the “Shifting Urban Narratives” project; and ethnographic field notes with 11 youth fellows documenting their experiences navigating Detroit’s economic, social, and political landscapes. Materials encompass mainstream media and alternative representations created through community organizations, plus policy documents demonstrating visual representations’ consequences on urban education.
Results and/or Substantiated Conclusions
My analysis reveals three key findings. First, ruin porn operates as a material-semiotic apparatus actively producing urban educational decline by foreclosing alternative becomings for human-nonhuman assemblages. These visual representations create conditions affecting how bodies move, feel, and learn within urban spaces. Second, youth counter-narratives demonstrate sophisticated posthuman literacy practices, showing collaboration with urban materials, technologies, and nonhuman life to generate alternative educational futures. Third, the ruin porn industry creates extractive relationships with human communities and urban ecologies, treating both as resources for consumption. I argue that educational researchers must develop posthuman methodologies recognizing distributed agency of urban educational assemblages. This research contributes to curriculum studies by demonstrating how posthuman approaches can inform ethical, ecologically-responsive practices attending to complex entanglements of human, nonhuman, and technological actors in urban educational contexts.

Author

• Roland Sintos Coloma, Wayne State University