COVID-19 collaboration call: project reflections & directions (Response)
makasuarezI 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
makasuarezMaka Suarez
makasuarezI'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
makasuarezI 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.
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a_chenThis convention has address matters towards the state governments rather than vulnerable populations. Although this convention might assist vulnerable populations enhance their living quality.
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a_chenThe project was organized in association with Healing Hands for Haiti (HHH). The Haiti 2010 earthquake has push the need of the program since there is not enough population served in the rehabilitation field. And there is about 15% (~1.5M) people living with a disability. The program was available before the earthquake, due to the lack of physical therapists around the country, and most of them are lived aboard. It was aimed to strengthen the rehabilitation skills within the local community and disaster preparedness.
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a_chenSince the design used the aluminum alloy and steel as the main materials, the product cost should not be unaffordable for emergency uses. For the design, it is definitely attainable for the imagined user in a disaster situation.
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a_chenOSHA has produced a wide range of publication on hundreds of topic that relates to the safety issues. These publications are in EPUB format for publics to view. They also produce fortnightly newsletters via email and RSS feeds.
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a_chenThe MSF members could get some rest if there do not attend some of the parties, even though having a party is a way of relaxing, but sleeping in some way has the same function as well.