Re: A Motive to Celebrate

I have found an article that has helped put the problems that I previously presented into perspective. “Tainted Space: Representations of Injection Drug Users in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside” by Andrew Woolford (2001) has answered many concerns I had when writing my last article about different aspects of representation in the downtown eastside. According to Woolford, stigmatization of the downtown eastside has lead to segregation which in turn has lead to a lack of moral responsibility about the downtown eastside. Since this article reflects on media representations of the downtown eastside from 1997 to 1999, I have made a mental history of what has probably lead to the more recent representations of as a retort to what was being depicted previously.

Woolford noticed that the media had been representing the downtown eastside as the source of the HIV/AIDS problem in Vancouver with the potential to spread it’s terminal illness to everyone else. He shows how terms such as skid row and references to the downtown eastside being dirty, decaying, a blight on the beauty of Vancouver and a metaphorical war zone (all respective sections of the paper) have removed the community from the rest of society (mentally and physically) and placed them outside of the moral space of the city. Moral responsibility had been removed when regarding the area because the IDUs (injections drug users) were seen to have chosen their life path and were a burden on the tax payers.

In light of the negative representation from the media and the general public, I have begun to understand why there was a shift to a happier and more beautiful downtown eastside in literature and the arts. Though this is purely speculative, it now seems more obvious that the celebration of the downtown eastside’s culture is so strong (and sometimes maybe too strong) in response to the negative light shed on the area in the past. In a way it is like people are saying, “this place has a very engaging history and people here should not be viewed as being so indecent!” In trying to show the good side of the downtown eastside, many things have been left out and disregarded; just as things had been from 1997 to 1999.

In my original post I had jumped head first into the middle of a discussion that I did not know existed. After reading this article, I have gained a better perspective on how this discussion is effecting the representations of a specific group of people to the rest of society.

Cited:

Woolford, Andrew (2001) “Tainted Space: Representations of injection drug Users and HIV/AIDS in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside”, B.C. Studies Vol. 129, 27-50