Analyze

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.

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.

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.

1) Fukushima proved current standard ineffective. Fukushima was the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl incident over 25 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of people had to be relocated due to the radiation leaks—many to this day. The effects of the hundreds of thousands of gallons of radiation contaminated water released into the ocean are still not fully known.

                2) International groups called for agency to enforce as no current candidate is feasible. IAEA is large enough but not fully trusted to be the host as it promotes nuclear use and appeared to praise TEPCO and the handling of the Fukushima incident. The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) is a better candidate but still faces the problem of appearing as a secretive organization keeping its member companies confidential. WANO also currently lacks the size and resources to build an international nuclear disaster strike team.

                3) The author stresses that good communication and cooperation are required for success of such an organization. For a response team to work at the international level, sharing of different countries’ reactor designs and other various trade secrets would be crucial. The expertise from operators, responders, and other professionals who have had hands-on experience from Fukushima and other nuclear disasters. It would take a sizable amount of funding for such an organization and maintain the capabilities as the author described. 

1) “Repeatedly, I have been surprised by the impact that even lightly sketched case histories can have on readers.”

2) “But even the manifesto conceded that less formal expertise would remain important in the areas of practice that had not been subject to high-level testing. THAT confession covers much of the territory.”

The implications this report has for technical professions is the report is an example of what should not occur, more proper prep should have occured. The government distrubted food should have been protected and been on site for the incoming storms. Hospital's should have been evacuated days earlier, the report serves as a warning of what not to do if a storm this stron occurs again. Technical professionals should use this report as advice on what to do in the future. The impact of the healthcare professionals was good, they used their knowledge to the best of their ability-they determined the resources needed to increase.

The IAEA is based in Vienna, Austria. It is comprised of six main departments: Department of Nuclear Energy, Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, Department of Technical Cooperation, Department of Safeguards, Department of Management, and Department of Safety and Security. The IAEA employs over 2200 staff throughout the world. It has offices in Toronto and Tokyo and also holds research facilities in Monaco, Austria, and Seibersdorf. The main resource the IAEA provides to its member is nuclear knowledge and expertise in its various departments though countless publications.

Miriam Ticktin is an associate Anthropology professor at The New School. She graduated with a PhD from Stanford University in 2002. “Miriam works at the intersections of the anthropology of medicine and science, law, and transnational and postcolonial feminist theory. Her research has focused in the broadest sense on what it means to make political claims in the name of a universal humanity: she has been interested in what these claims tell us about universalisms and difference, about who can be a political subject, on what basis people are included and excluded from communities, and how inequalities get instituted or perpetuated in this process. She is the author of Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Immigration and Humanitarianism in France (UC Press, 2011), co-editor of In the Name of Humanity: the Government of Threat and Care (with Ilana Feldman, Duke UP 2010), and a founding co-editor of the journal Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development.” (from her profile from The New School).

The main findings presented in the article are the stages of mental  illnesses after a disaster post, pre and per factors as well as the most common health (mental illness disorders) after a disaster has occurred-such as generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD. The article also discusses that despite events happening only a small percentage of the population experiences these illnesses and a small portion still get treatment. The lack of treatment options is also discussed- it is not readily available after a disaster.