This photo was taken in New York this past November and it shows Times Square, also known as the āTheater Districtā in Manhattan, a booming district of businesses and plazas covering 42nd street. I chose this photo because it relates to the key concept of āmodernization.ā Modernization is a form of change marked by economic growth through industrialization and market expansion, political consolidation through the state, technological innovation, literacy, and options for social mobility. The textbook continues to state that it originated in Western Europe...with the emerging emphasis on material progress and individual betterment. New York or āThe Big Appleā as its commonly referred to, is known as the city of dreams or individual betterment and I believe no place other than Times Square illustrates that. Times Square is marked with constant technological innovation, seen through the glowing lights of buildings to the shining screens igniting the plaza, making you feel as if the sun never set.Ā
Obviously New York was not always marked with these markets and innovation as at one point in time it was consumed by nature, yet the amount of technology that fills that one street shows how much mankind has progressed technologically. However, this rash amount of building relates to another key concept: development aggression. Development aggression is the imposition of development projects and policies without the free, prior and informed consent of the affected people. The Shinnecock, Oneida, Seneca and Tonawanda were the native Indians of New York yet the Indian Removal Act, which stated that all Indians on the East coast were forced to move West of the Mississippi, utterly uprooted them from their native land in New York. In a sense, 42nd street is āborrowed landā as Native Americans never consented to their removal, nor the building of businesses over their territory. I would additionally like to learn how modernization, coupled with development aggression, causes a unanimous standard of ācultureā within the people of that region. Moreover, actual anthropological fieldwork can be done related to the photo to study the traces of Indian history that can be found in the land, as well as how modernization and the Indian Removal Act affected their community.










