Department or Program
Environmental Studies
Abstract
Boston’s climate plans reproduce and aestheticize a model of resilience that relies on pre-identified vulnerability and capital-driven greening. In doing so, they obscure the role that green infrastructure plays in displacement, and use visual and rhetorical strategies to mask the politics embedded in these developments. “Achieving optimal levels of distributive justice without procedural justice is challenging,” yet this is precisely what Boston’s resilience efforts have attempted (Van Den Berg et al). This exposes the contradictions between visual renderings of inclusion and the realities of exclusion and reflects a broader failure to treat vulnerability, justice, and climate adaptation as interdependent, evolving, and deeply political. Analyzing these reports not as objective representations of climate change and climate action, but as images, maps, artifacts, and technologies that circulate and reinforce path dependencies allows us to unveil the hidden politics and interests of Boston’s climate resilience approach.
Level of Access
Restricted: Campus/Bates Community Only Access
First Advisor
Sonja Pieck
Date of Graduation
5-2025
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Recommended Citation
Barrow, Elizabeth, "The Politics of Visual Language in Boston's Climate Resilience Planning" (2025). Standard Theses. 390.
https://scarab.bates.edu/envr_studies_theses/390
Number of Pages
67
Restricted
Available to Bates community via local IP address or Bates login.