Analyze

Why is the rate of incarceration in Louisiana so high? How do we critique the way prisons are part of infrastructural solutions to anthropocenic instabilities? As Angela Davis writes, “prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.” One way of imagining and building a vision of an anti-carceral future is practiced in the Solitary Gardens project here in New Orleans: 

The Solitary Gardens are constructed from the byproducts of sugarcane, cotton, tobacco and indigo- the largest chattel slave crops- which we grow on-site, exposing the illusion that slavery was abolished in the United States. The Solitary Gardens utilize the tools of prison abolition, permaculture, contemplative practices, and transformative justice to facilitate exchanges between persons subjected to solitary confinement and volunteer proxies on the “outside.” The beds are “gardened” by prisoners, known as Solitary Gardeners, through written exchanges, growing calendars and design templates. As the garden beds mature, the prison architecture is overpowered by plant life, proving that nature—like hope, love, and imagination—will ultimately triumph over the harm humans impose on ourselves and on the planet.

"Nature" here is constructed in a very particularistic way: as a redemptive force to harness in opposition to the wider oppressive system the architecture of a solitary confinement cell is a part of. It takes a lot of intellectual and political work to construct a counter-hegemonic nature, in other words. Gardeners in this setting strive toward a cultivation of relations antithetical to the isolationist, anti-collective sociality prisons (and in general, a society in which prisons are a permanent feature of crisis resolution) foster.

My interest in NOLA anthropocenics pivots on water, and particularly the ways in which capitalist regimes of value and waste specify, appropriate, and/or externalize forms of water. My research is concerned with water crises more generally, and geographically situated in Flint, Michigan. I thought I could best illustrate these interests with a sampling of photographs from a summer visit to NOLA back in 2017. At the time, four major confederate monuments around the city had just been taken down. For supplemental reading, I'm including an essay from political theorist Adolph Reed Jr. (who grew up in NOLA) that meditates on the long anti-racist struggle that led to this possibility, and flags the wider set of interventions that are urgently required to abolish the landscape of white supremacy. 

Flooded street after heavy rains due to failures of city pumping infrastructure.

A headline from the same week in the local press.

Some statues are gone but other monuments remain (this one is annotated).

A Starbucks in Lakeview remembering Katrina--the line signifies the height of the water at the time.

Reading:

Adolph Reed Jr., “Monumental Rubbish” https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/25/monumental-rubbish-statues-torn-down-what-next-new-orleans

P.S. In case the photos don't show up in the post I'm attaching them in a PDF document as well! 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The main findings are about gender based violence in armed conflicts and the political implications of addressing gender based violence (separating and giving special treatment versus treating everyone as neutral) in humanitarian aid efforts.

Sexual violence has a place in humanitarianism; when it comes to getting treatment in humanitarian aid efforts gender-based violence is recognized as a "crime against humanity" that needs to be addressed as they are common in armed conflicts. 

Gender-based violence is approached as both a medical and health issue; the immediate wounds as the result of gender based violence (usually sexual violence) is focused on for treatment in emergencies but the deeper issue of the "rape epidemic" resulting from the system/ culture is not "treated".

The article notes the U.N.'s role in the cholera epidemic that killed thousands of Haitians and government and societal factors that lead to Haiti's lack of major improvement after the earthquake. Another public health issue that was mentioned was, "the only part of the Haitian government that receives direct funding from the U.S. government, the Health Ministry, has racked up impressive post-earthquake gains in childhood vaccination rates and access to lifesaving HIV treatment". 

The report addresses how strained public health infrastructures can get in the face of large scale epidemics like in the ebola outbreak. It analyzes the responses of local government, health care workers, and MSF in the ebola outbreak, discussing what could have been done to prevent the spread and severity of the disease.

Disaster investigations look at the emergency response that followed the incident, either the timing or actions taken to save human lives. There's more about the investigations calling for improved emergency preparedness; policies and technology development to prevent disasters such as the Hague Street Explosion (1850) which involved a faulty boiler (and other factors) and the Iroquois theater fire (1903) which led to changed theater building policies. 

The policy is a disaster relief act aimed to provide governmental aid/ assistance at the local, state, and national levels for emergency preparedness and response in the event of a major disaster. 

The narrative is sustained through Atul Gawande's experience and research into improving his end-of-life care for his own patients by meeting with other healthcare professionals (oncologists, palliative care experts and surgeons), and analyzing his actions with his father. The film has strong emotional appeal, as loss of loved ones is a common experience, and difficult for all parties involved. 

Scientific info isn't really in depth (disease processes aren't talked about) mostly just psycho-social aspects discussed. 

Violence against health care workers is the subject of the article so emergency medical response is addressed directly, but mostly within the context of humanitarian aid.