Analyze

Staßfurt, Saxony-Anhalt Environmental health threats

Philipp Baum
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1. Long-term threats, legacy of mining
- Unstable old salt mines below Stassfurt that have to be monitored and water flows have to be management to prevent ground movement
- so far, more than 800 buildings, including an 500-year old church had to be demolished. Currently, ground movement is under control
- 27 waste heaps and contaminted sites within the city that contain many very hazadous chemical compunds. They were never properly cleaned up

2. Long-term threats, ongoing causes
- by-products of salt mining and refining are collected in large landfills that leak salt into sorrounding areas. There are no plans how these landfills can be remediated, they have to be mananged indenfinitely
- soil erosion of arable land around the city by high intensity farming of crops for livestock production and bioenergy
- toxic waste produced by waste incarceration plant is pumped into former salt mining caves where it solidifies and becomes impossible to recover

3. Short term threats
- explosion in bionenergy plant in 2020
- leakage of ammonia at public street in 2014
- pollution of river bode with ammonia and chloride by CHIECH Soda, massive fish kills every summer
- air pollution, cause unknown, probably mostly by metalworks industry

Staßfurt, Saxony-Anhalt Setting: Salt-mining

Philipp Baum
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Staßfurt is a small city in the East German Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt with about 24 thousand inhabitants. Like many cities and villages in the area, it faces huge demographic problems: The population is shrinking rapidly, consists mostly of older people, unemployment is high, percentage of highly educated people is low. The city has a long history of salt mining that goes back to the 13th century. Many inhabitants proudly refer to Staßfurt as the "Cradle of potash-mining" ("Wiege des Kalibergbaus"). Unfilled salt mining shafts that were flooded by groundwater had to be abandoned and started to cave in. Over 800 buildings in the city center had to be demolished because of instabilities, among them a 500-year old church. Nevertheless, salt mining and a metallic industry that developed alongside it is still the largest economic sector in Staßfurt. The city is still permeated by an old mining culture that becomes visible in traditional festivals, clubs (Bergmannsverein e.V. Staßfurt) and the playing of traditional miner's song on offical occasions (Steigerlied).

COVID-19 collaboration call: project reflections & directions (Response)

makasuarez
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I am particularly interested in comparative approaches on how different sites (and academics in those places or studying them) are thinking about COVID in their localities. How are people dealing with issues of trust and information in an era when entire archives are in danger (like the police archives in Guatemala which had been rescued in the past decade and are now in danger). This question expands beyond COVID but has become crucial in the context of Ecuador where reliable data is hard to come by. Another important aspect for us is how indigenous communities are fairing amid the pandemic (here a fabulous article on the terrible situation in Brazil—which is not so different to Ecuador's). This touches on issues of communication, infrastructure, language, systemic racism, and more. Finally, I am also interested in ways in which we might be a able to contribute to some of these issues from our academic spaces. Collaborators (which can take many forms) are certainly welcomed.

Mobilizing comedians/political commentators

makasuarez
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One of the mediums of communications that has reached well beyond the US are monologues by well-known comedians that are partly explaining, partly commenting on current BLM events. One of them is Hasan Minjah and his message We Cannot Stay Silent About George Floyd where he calls on migrants in particular to act in the face of racism rather than perpetuate it. Nearly 4 million people have seen the clip, which is part of Minjah's broader Netflix TV series The Patriot Act (who makes these videos and pays for them is also relevant here). In Ecuador, this video circulated mainly among English speaking young adults, mainly via WhatsApp. It triggered many group discussions around what is happening in the US and how we might think about this political moment with regards to our own racist history. The second video is by Trevor Noah and has over 8 million views. In it, he explains what racism means in relationship to the social contract and how it has failed for too many people. To me it is particularly interesting to see the pedagogical approach their videos take and the truly diverse audiences they speak to. The ripple effect the videos have is important for thinking about how the BLM movement has mobilized political sentiments well beyond the US and what mediums can effectively do this (and for whom).

Maka Suarez

makasuarez
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I'm a co-founder of Kaleidos - Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography, a space for academic experimentations supported by two top ranked universities in Ecuador (University of Cuenca and FLACSO-Ecuador). We are located in Cuenca, where I am assistant professor of medical anthropology. Together with a team of researchers we have been tracking covid19 with a specific focus on Latin America through Spanish language podcasts, collective texts, webinars, and online forums.

My current ethnographic interest is on documenting data distrust networks from the neighborhood scale to the national level in Ecuador, and how these networks have produced distinctive approaches (and failures) to the current pandemic.

Maka Suarez: thinking about air pollution locally

makasuarez
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I was interested in learning about how air pollution has been talked/researched in the New Orleans area. Mainly, the need to highlight local specificities and historical analysis. A 1950s study on air pollution in New Orleans (Air Pollution and New Orleans Asthma), for instance, documented asthma incidence among black communities (sadly the article still uses the N word), and its relationship to underground fire burning in nearby dumps. The study is more comprehensive and did a census in part of the city as well as a number of medical tests on 84 individuals.

A second study, this one from 2007, documented asthma in children (Prevalence of Indoor Allergen Exposures among New Orleans Children with Asthma). It has a relevant focus of the differences between document indoor allergen exposure in different areas of the US and how subtropical weather in NOLA plays an important role in the kinds of allergies that children with asthma face. One of the main findings of the study can be summarized in the following quote “our data show that asthmatic children in New Orleans may be exposed to a greater number of allergens at moderate to high levels compared to asthmatic children living in other inner cities and to the general population.”

Finally, a third reference, the book Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast talks about something, others have already pointed out (@Omar Perez Figueroa for instance) regarding areas that undergo dramatic change and hardship after natural disasters like hurricane Katrina and Rita. This book, particularly chapter 5 (though I can’t access the full text) explains the highly toxic environment that resulted (and remains) in the New Orleans area due to little clean-up action following the disasters. Lack of funding, deference to poorly resourced local authorities, and policy-failure all affect New Orleans (and many of our sites of research) particularly the fate of vulnerable communities.