Analyze

relate to the public image and reports on the data inititatives in turkey

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! 

UN - potentially caused the cholera outbreak, organized/managing response to the cholera outbreak without acknowledging responsibility for it

Pedro Medrano - UN coordinator for the response in Haiti

USAID - donor of approximately $1.5 billion since earthquake, uses international contractors to rebuild Haiti

Health Ministry - part of the Haitian govt. that manages country health and vaccinations

Ban Ki-moon - won't acknowledge possible UN role in creating cholera outbreak, UN Secretary-General

Haitian Government - currently undergoing disruption due to a  change in terms of its Senators and disagreements between parties

Users can voice interest in annotating or translating works to teach3eleven [at] gmail.com. The website operators maintain a listing of works that they would like annotated. Users can also share annotations via twitter, facebook, tumbler, google+, and email. Users are also able to comment on the articles directly on the website and can reply to eachothers comments for discussion there as well.

Doctors without Borders is comprised of physicians and other healthcare professionals. They also have some support staff workers who take care of clerical things so that those in the field can have the best support and deliver the best care possible.

It was difficult to figure where this article had been referenced or discussed. It was included in a volume of History and Technology, so it would have been distributed along with the rest of the articles in the book. On "researchgate.net" it did not list anyone who had cited it, so my assumption is that it is not heavily referred to outside of this class.

Emergency response isn't addressed in this report. This report deals with higher-level policy and morality issues.

Dr Schmid discusses her view that the engineers and scientists should not be the only people looking at the response to a nuclear incident. She believes that nuclear response teams need to move away from those in the late 1900s, in which a select technically-competent few were in charge of maintaining the safety and security of nuclear facilities, to those that bring together scholars, technical experts, and international relief organizations to educate the public and determine what is in the best interest of the residents of the area as well as society in general. Dr. Schmid believes that scholarship in science, technology, society studies applies to this situation and can be a great help in determining future actions.

The authors support their argument by referencing a study that showed that race was associated with how quickly one received therapeutics. They also referenced that PIH was able to help in Haiti by introducing a model of care in which the patients chose someone to assist them by delivering drugs and supportive care in their home. This person would live nearby and was seen by some as a very effective way to remove barriers to care for AIDS and other chronic diseases in impoverished environments. They also say by removing issues like access to clean water that impoverished areas see, MTCT rates of HIV decreased.