Analyze

The Pollution Reporter app allows users to: (1) make a pollution report of something they see or sense, (2) search different polluters in Chemical Valley and access data on their emissions, (3) look up health symptoms and see what chemical pollutants might be linked to these symptoms, and (4) learn about specific chemical pollutants.

The workflows are meant to provide impacted individuals access to important information that can help them link health harms to specific polluters and chemicals from the nearby Chemical Valley. The reporting workflow also allows individuals to create reports, and thus their own data, on things they see or sense that might not be captured by industry monitoring systems. In this way, workflows both streamline access to important and relevant information while also enabling the capturing of experiential data.

The Pollution Reporter app includes data on: (1) polluters in Chemical Valley and a list of its chemical emissions, (2) health symptoms and the chemicals that are associated with that symptom, and (3) chemical pollutants that are emitted in Chemical Valley and the associated health impacts and polluters. Users are encouraged to search within these three categories and see the interconnectedness between polluters, chemical pollutants, and health symptoms. This helps users attach responsibility for health harms to chemicals and the corporations that make them. Users are also encouraged to submit their own data through a pollution report of something they see or sense. 

The Pollution Reporter App translates and connects government, industry-reported, and peer reviewed sources of data into accessible information about the known health effects of pollutants. The creators of the app recognized the limitations to government data in that it is (1) created by Industry, (2) disconnected from the health harms that pollution causes, (3) hard to get, (4) inaccurate, tending to underreport harms, (5) out-dated, (6) and usually organized one chemical at a time, not accounting for cumulative exposure of multiple chemicals. 

The key participation that the Pollution Reporter app supports is the ability for a user to report a pollution event, spill, or leak to the Ontario Ministry of Environment, making it easier for community members to report problems to the Spill Action Centre. The app assists in making the report, which is then sent through the users own email, and allows users to share on social media or keep a record of their reports.

This  reporting workflow is one of the main features of the app (one of four) and is located in the bottom navigation bar as the report icon (next to the polluters, chemicals, and health symptoms icons). 

According to this article by Nicole Westmen (2020), police violence has been tied to the development of numerous underlying conditions that increase the risk of complications from COVID-19. Furthermore, experiences of police brutality have been shown to foment distrust with other institutions, including medical institutions. As a result, contact tracers are experiencing resistance to divulging such important information as whether or not COVID-19 patients attended a protest and who they might have encountered there, for fear of retaliation.

In New Orleans, African American communities were not only hit hard by Katrina's floods, but also by violent policing during the catastrophe and a disaster "recovery" effort that was fundamentally Anti-Black (closing of publich housing and the privatization of schools and health care). Recovery efforts were not organized along ideals of racial justice that would have addressed gaps in educational and health care resources. Instead, they were imagined along neoliberal principles that systematically excluded the city's Black population. I am interested in looking into how the Anti-Blackness of Katrina "recovery" set the stage for the virulent way COVID 19 is affecting New Orleans' African American communities.

In the US Virgin Islands, Hurricanes Maria and Irma decimated what were already decrepit public school and public health systems. Public schools and hospitals had not been property repaired and remained under-supported as of early March 2020. In places like the Island of St. Croix, residents reported the hospital having only one physicial on staff, and indicated fear of misdiagnosis and prolonged waiting times kept them from seeking health care there. The clientelle of the public health system is predominantly Afro and Hispanic Caribbean. Meanwhile, US "mainlanders" (who are predominantly white) are reported to seek their healthcare off island, something only those with ample financial resources can do. Infection rates and fatality rates for the USVI seem rather low from official reports, but it is important to find out if this is because testing itself is not readily avialable in the territory.

Media coverage from hard-hit cities suggests there is a disproportionate number of arrests and citations related to enforcement of social distancing among racial minorities.

Also, police response seems to have followed very different patterns in the case of "re-open" protests and anti-police brutality protests.

I'm currently learning more about Wikipedia for another course project, mostly focused on how I could use it to teach undergraduates. I've used Wikipedia countless times but never looked further into how the contribution process actually works, nor did I ever contribute anything. Below are a few brief observations about BLM on Wikipedia: 

Every article has a "talk" page where users discuss changes. As events are unfolding, there are various discussions about the Black Lives Matter entry. For example: should there be separate entries for BLM as an organization and social movement (like Black Panther Party and Black Power Movement). Currently, COVID-19 is only mentioned once, in a sub-section on protest in New Zealand.

In addition to the talk page, there is an entire WikiProject, a sort of overview site to cover activity about BLM. Throughout June 2020, they are hosting an edit-a-thon to improve articles related to BLM, racism, racial justice, and policing. 

Sidenote: there is also an entry for #AllLivesMatter – which according to the talk page was split off sometime in 2016. The "criticism" section opens with a reference to David Theo Goldberg (in our department here at UC Irvine).

As you can tell from my notes, I'm still very new (and slightly overwhelmed) by the different layers of participation. Since I will keep learning more, we could think about whether and if our own transnational project could contribute to discussions (see the WikiProject site for COVID-19).