Search

I am wondering how the book's central concept,  "landscapes of power,"  can be used to think about energy and infrastructural projects outside the Navajo context? The four modalities of power that make up this landscape are deeply influenced by your ethnographic data, and throughout the book you emphasize the need to pay attention to the particularities of places and communities. Thus, I would surmise that other landscapes of power would consist of different configurations of modalities of power? If so, how would you advise research into these other landscapes? What would should scholars pay attention to?

What motivated the structure of the book and the use of the interludes in particular? I'd like to learn more about the decision to include them as interludes. What was the idea behind these moments of reflection that both supplement and bring a brief pause to the argument?

How has the book been received among the communities that you work with? What have been the consequences, if any, for those actors and organizations who were featured in your analysis?

I believe one of the most important aspects the book highlights towards the end of Chapter 4, through Chapter, and within the Conclusion is the idea of false environmentalism that emerges from skewed (i.e. false) science reports. Just as much as the business representatives boasting their environmentalism when building the water dam in the Philippines had hired a group of scientists to report the positive effects of carbon emissions (against those of coal), certain energy governance entities focus on similar false science. The book seems to incite a revolution in the way energy is conceptualized and governed as specifically related to the unique psychosocial, social, and traditional attachments populations have to places (Powell, 2018:160; 237; 239). In other words, building energy plants and governing them should not come at the expense of the populations who reside there (i.e. populations should not be relocated).

1. What recommendations do you have for studying vulnerable populations? What should be the focus and of what should one be careful, specifically?

2. What would you say makes the Dine and Navajo communities particularly vulnerable to government exploitation by green jobs and what would you say are some appropriate solutions to the foregoing as particularly related to the concept of the 'double whammy’ or the 'double bind'? 

3. How are, do you believe, households vulnerable to policies surrounding transformations of governance in weatherization and construction practices (if known)?

More than suggestions, I believe this text draws great parallels for discussing the interconnectedness of economic investments, energy activism, what Dr. Powell refers to as 'greening capitalism', and the right to pollute (Powell, 2018). Power is taken out of its rightful host and appropriated by larger institutions of colonization, where Indigenous nations work to produce power but don’t have the grid to use that power and are, thus, dependent of agents of capitalism in energy production (Powell, 2018). We can think about a transfusion of power moving from energy systems that exist today, to distributions of grid vulnerabilities, to the discrepancies in energy production within the Navajo nation and against their minimal consumption (Powell, 2018). In a broader outlook of the transfusion of power in energy systems, politics, and land, we can think about the process as compounding health and social vulnerabilities that affect energy and climate justice. 

"The complex “double bind” facing movements—at the same time that it faces tribal leadership—who because of colonial logics and legacies, must work both within and against the constraints of the state." (Powell, 2018: 137). This quote is particularly significant because it draws upon the previous accounts of the sovereign powers of the Tribes whilst also accounting for their interdependence on outside entities like the DOE, and other Federal institutions. It evokes the still colonial nature of the ruling entities in the United States and a consequent false sense of independence. This false sense of independence can seemingly be drawn from the disconnected and isolated energy systems present in the Navajo Nation, specifically where Dr. Powell highlights the Nation has lacking adequate access to water, electricity, paved roads and other opportunities (Powell, 2018: 115-116). The foregoing speaks quite directly to many in the Navajo Nation being energy vulnerable and lacking access to reliable utilities, day-to-day necessities, which also bridges the connections between energy vulnerability and energy rights.

St. Louis: Award winning (US Society of Environmental Journalists)  2001 journalism on health hazards in Weldon Springs.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/the-right-to-answers/Content?oi…

I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.

On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.

On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.

For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius. 

A brief essay about St. Louis' notorious eminent domain history--

--along with 2 recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch articles about "urban renewal" projects that are scheduled to reoccupy the Mill Flats area, which hosted the most notorious episode of displacement of African-American communities: the Chouteau Greenway project (will it serve or displace low-income St. Louisans?); and SLU's Mill Creek Flats high-rise project, which certainly will, and whose name seems to me an especially tone-deaf if gutsy move...

https://humanities.wustl.edu/features/Margaret-Garb-St-Louis-Eminent-Domain

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/steelcote-developer-plans-more-apartments-brewery-space-in-million-midtown/article_811eaf96-76e1-5c20-a870-1e79abd3f06e.html

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/chouteau-greenway-project-aims-to-knit-st-louis-neighborhoods-together/article_55fea4e6-6829-5c80-9168-313305b4e3bb.html

Contextual Articles
Landscapes with Purpose
One STL
Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District
EPA - Green Infrastructure
Green City Coalition

Green Stormwater Infrastructure
Prior to the 1970's, many US cities managed stormwater through piped conveyance systems. Flooding was once considered the most significant risk associated with rainfall. System builders built water infrastructure to accommodate volume. Most cities in the US have what is called a combined sewer system (CSS). This system pipes stormwater and municipal wastewater together. The water is then treated and then released into receiving bodies. St. Louis is one of the rare cities (Baltimore, where my research is based is another) that has a municipal separated stormwater system (MS4). In a separated system, a system of pipes keeps stormwater separate from other wastewaters. 

In the 1970's ecological research, some of which came from the EPA's National Urban Research Program, began to demonstrate that nutrients in runoff were responsible for environmental pollution. In turn, municipal engineers transitioned to thinking about tools and techniques for decreasing this nutrient load. In St. Louis, the separated system operates under a federal consent decree with the EPA where the city must reduce the overall percentage of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) carried through runoff. The most recent strategy for managing this problem is Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI). Although the problems associated with GSI are of local relevance, they are managed through state and federal governance strategies.

While GSI is difficult to define, many times installations feature landscaped elements that aim to mimic the pre-development hydrological processes of a given site. In urban areas, these projects often utilize vacant lands or reduce existing impervious surface cover. Many planners and community groups also suggest that GSI provides additional social benefits through an increase in community green space, reduction in urban heat island, and improved property values. 

This image from Missouri Coalition for the environment brings together the many suggested benefits of implementing these technologies. The diagram also provokes some questions that may interest us in our project; Does GSI represent a paradigmatic shift in techniques of stormwater management? Does natural or environmental mimicry in engineering projects act as a corrective to the anthropocene, or are these technologies merely a response? How are the social, economic, and technical benefits of GSI calculated and have attendent burdens been considered as well?

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louis-takes-new-look-old-problem-what-do-vacant-land-and-abandoned-buildings#stream/0

This is an article originally aired on STL public radio in 2016 regarding abandoned buildings and vacant lots. The article highlights how the St Louis Land Reutilization Authority came to be the largest landowners in the city and highlights some of the challenges the agency has faced. The main point of the article is to highlight new strategies for using/dealing with vacant land. These strategies include selling lots to adjacent residents for a price of a low dollar amount and 2 years of maintaining the land (like an urban homestead act) and creating tree farms and other green infrastructure projects on vacant lots. Additionally the articles discusses efforts made to manage LRA holdings more effectively, including  increase funding for demolishing abandoned buildings that affect property values, utilize AmeriCorps volunteers to gather better data about the land within the agency’s ownership.

Land banking - the practice of aggregating land parcels for future sale or development and/or converting vacant/abandoned lots into “productive” property. St. Louis has the oldest land bank in the country (created by a Missouri state statute in 1971), with the land acquired when property owners fail to pay taxes for 3 years OR a parcel fails to sell in public tax foreclosure sales. A document on land banking from the Center for Community Progress: https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/LandBankingBasics.pdf

--perhaps interesting to think of this as an urban form of public lands? Seems like it is ripe for all kinds of similar multiple interpretations of what it means for a gov’t entities to own something, whether it is labeled public, whether it viewed as land meant to be for the benefit of all, etc.

People/Entities/Orgs:

Land Reutilization Authority(LRA) - is the largest landowner in the city! Although it is a city-level entity, it was created by the Missouri legislature, so any changes have to be approved by state lawmakers.

Otis Williams, the executive director of the St. Louis Development Corporation, which acts as an umbrella organization for LRA.

Patrick Brown, a deputy chief of staff for Mayor Francis Slay. Brown leads the Vacant Land and Blight Task Force.

Harvard by the Center for Community Progress, a national think tank on vacant land issues

Fresh Coast Capital