Interlacing various ethnographic methods, Exit Zero captures the damaging personal and economic effects deindustrialization has on the neighborhoods and families that make up Southeast Chicago—a region that served as a hub for the U.S. steel mill industry at the height of the manufacturing boom. The author, Christine Walley, employs three data collection methods to thicken our understanding of how shifting socioeconomic class status and stability, family lineage, neighborhood identity and land-value are all co-constitutive in identifying what is occurring in “America’s center (Walley, page x)” as the inequality gap in America expands. While the author focuses on the aftermath of deindustrialization and its impact on class and access to the
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Walley’s usage of ethnography, in this respect, is incredibly compelling since this approach offers up numerous ways of understanding the human and land narratives of Southeast Chicago. What she also does significantly well is the ways in which she extends her usage of these ethnographic methods to support exit zero as a recurring metaphor throughout the text. Therefore, I will examine the ethnographic techniques that Walley uses in Exit Zero and argue that her handling of each method effectively supports exit zero as a metaphor that furthers her point to the collective lost status of Southeast …show more content…
Specifically, three pictures that reflect the exit zero status of the steel mill worker, the land within the neighborhood of Hegewisch and Southeast Chicago as a microcosm for the uncertainties deindustrialization has on socioeconomic mobility, geographic proximity and access to the epicenters of the cities that abandoned its residents. The position in which each photograph appears throughout the text follows the story in a linear manner that aligns with the progressive decline and historical shifts impacting Southeast Chicago alongside Walley and her family. As well, the images build a tragic momentum that underpin the various ways in which deindustrialization, in tandem with the unpredictability of socioeconomic class status, capture and contextualize the growing inequalities in America. For example, Figure 17 (page 71) shows a protest taking place in downtown Chicago by workers from Wisconsin Steel. What is noteworthy about this image is that it centers the exit zero status of the steel mill worker within the image. Fighting for their right to pensions and future socioeconomic stability, the steel mill workers are asserting their agency through political organizing. Yet, the reason for them declaring their agency is due to their exit zero status as workers who are ‘forgotten’ and ‘overlooked’ as the steel mills restructure under
Walley’s usage of ethnography, in this respect, is incredibly compelling since this approach offers up numerous ways of understanding the human and land narratives of Southeast Chicago. What she also does significantly well is the ways in which she extends her usage of these ethnographic methods to support exit zero as a recurring metaphor throughout the text. Therefore, I will examine the ethnographic techniques that Walley uses in Exit Zero and argue that her handling of each method effectively supports exit zero as a metaphor that furthers her point to the collective lost status of Southeast …show more content…
Specifically, three pictures that reflect the exit zero status of the steel mill worker, the land within the neighborhood of Hegewisch and Southeast Chicago as a microcosm for the uncertainties deindustrialization has on socioeconomic mobility, geographic proximity and access to the epicenters of the cities that abandoned its residents. The position in which each photograph appears throughout the text follows the story in a linear manner that aligns with the progressive decline and historical shifts impacting Southeast Chicago alongside Walley and her family. As well, the images build a tragic momentum that underpin the various ways in which deindustrialization, in tandem with the unpredictability of socioeconomic class status, capture and contextualize the growing inequalities in America. For example, Figure 17 (page 71) shows a protest taking place in downtown Chicago by workers from Wisconsin Steel. What is noteworthy about this image is that it centers the exit zero status of the steel mill worker within the image. Fighting for their right to pensions and future socioeconomic stability, the steel mill workers are asserting their agency through political organizing. Yet, the reason for them declaring their agency is due to their exit zero status as workers who are ‘forgotten’ and ‘overlooked’ as the steel mills restructure under