Search

Archiving is always political

"Observers of community archives have tended to distinguish between those politically and culturally motivated endeavours acting to counter to the absences and misrepresentations relating to a particular group or community in mainstream archives and other heritage narratives and those whose the inspiration is not so directly or overtly political or cultural, but rather is a manifestation of a shared enthusiasm for the history of a place, occupation or interest. Whilst it is an important distinction, the authors would also contend that even in the most nostalgic and leisure-orientated community archive projects there is something inherently political in individuals and communities taking an active role in the re-telling of their own history." (2013, 5)

"One of the consequences and dimensions of this commitment to independence and sustaining autonomy is the resulting dependence on the significant personal sacrifice (financial, physical and mental) of key activists and a network of volunteers, arising from great emotional and political commitment to the collections and their impacts. As we have already noted this commitment is both an enormous benefit to the archive but also a potential vulnerability with regard to the long term stability, succession and sustainability." (2013, 12)

Second wave community archiving

"[D]evelopments in the web and social technology were a significant factor in what in the UK we might term the second wave of community-based archives and heritage activities in the late 1990s and early 2000s." (2013, 13)

Search for definitions and the 'institutional gaze'

"[W]hy are “we” (and here we are referring not only to academics in archival studies, but also to archival practitioners) so focused on formulating definitions of and making distinctions between mainstream and community archives and their endeavors? For the most part, “we” are not the voices of, or even representing “community archives”– although that line is becoming more blurred with increased numbers of professionally-trained archivists coming from and returning to these communities. We are the ones applying the term “community archives” to these diverse social, political and cultural initiatives and we are the ones viewing their inception and flourishing as some kind of phenomenon or movement. But are they really, or is that our projection, possibly because we recognize how these initiatives address the shortcomings of our more traditional archival constructions and practices?" (2013, 14)

Because of my work on the Bhopal disaster, I follow worst case scenario potential in many places -- and the corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge has long been on my radar.  Worst case scenarios involve the catastrophic release of dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere and create "vulnerability zones" -- what many people call kill zones -- around an industrial facility.  A 2014 report  from  the Environmental Justice and Health Alliance documents how these zones are hotspots of environmental injustice in the United States. 

See this 2001 Greenpeace map. When Greenpeace made this map, there was a push (by organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute) to pull worst case scenario information off the Internet because of its potential use by terrorists.  Greenpeace pushed back in campaigns for "chemical security," arguing that the best way to reduce risk is to reduce the production, handling and use of dangerous chemicals -- laying ground for today's movement for a "just transition."  See just transition work in Lousiana by the another gulf is possible campaign . 

Worst case scenarios came back into US national attention after the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas in 2014, prompting the Center for Effective Government's report, Kids in Danger Zones (showing that Houston and Port Arthus in Texas and Baton Rouge in Louisiana are the most high-risk metro areas in the United States).  See the Louisana Fact Sheet from the report (listing the highest risk facility in New Orleans as a wastewater treatment plant.). Note that the maps in the Center for Effective Government's report are no longer interactive -- pointing to a challenge the QA project is addressing: what we've termed "archiving for the anthropocene."  We need to figure out what archiving for the anthropocene should look like, how to build and sustain it, and how to put it to good use. 

Worst case scenarios have come back into controversy recently with Trump's EPA's saying that focus on worst case climate scenarios are unrealistic. Louisiana looks pretty bad....  see Propublica’s “Losing Ground.” 

The extreme weather that comes with climate change of course exacerbates worst case scenario risks.  See this on floods and chemical plant safety across the United States.  See this on the 2016 "thousand year" flood in Louisiana.  See this moderate recognition of the problem. 

The gift of the money caused discord in the community - rather than buying the good tea for a better price, so that it feels earned, it is a bigger power dynamic to gift the money

The publication of standards, inspections, certification, decertification, branding - connection to policy for organic certification

I don’t think they particularly see themselves as helpful to the tea growers - they are  more about codifying/enacting a “final vocabulary” around their view of environmental sustainability

In the context of a supply chain where the Global North [sic] corp/buyer is at the top, they are defining and enacting “the ethical” and environmental “responsibility” in their standards and their inspections and their certifications and labels and branding, without any real awareness of how these things are already happening, for different reasons, in the context of somewhere like Tanzania where the tea is actually being grown.

Standards development organizations, which include heavy influence from corporations in the Global North [sic], are “codify[ing] values of sustainability that are to govern practices” p825

Not much on the context of CSR or the history of these SDOs and why they exist.

As a participant in the NOLA Anthropocene Campus, I have gained insights on how communities, stewards, and managers of ecosystems in New Orleans have rolled out forms of interspecies care vis-à-vis ongoing environmental changes, coastal erosion, climate catastrophes and their deeply present and current effects (i.e., the 2010 BP oil disaster). Whilst much analytical lens has been given to geospatial changes in the study of the Anthropocene, here, I focus on how relations to non-human beings, also threatened by the changing tides of NOLA’s waterscapes, can enrich our understanding of such global transformations.

After disasters like Katrina, urban floodwaters harbored many hidden perils in the form of microbes that cause disease. Pathogenic bacterial exposure occurred when wastewater treatment plants and underground sewage got flooded, thus affecting the microbial landscape of New Orleans and increasing the potential of public health risks throughout Southern Louisiana. But one need not wait for a disaster event like Katrina to face these perils. Quotidian activities like decades of human waste and sewage pollution have contaminated public beaches now filled with lurking microbes. Even street puddle waters, such as those found on Bourbon Street, contain unsanitary bacteria level from years of close human exploitation of horses and inadequate drainage in 100-year old thoroughfares. More recently, microbial ecologies have also changed in the Gulf of Mexico due to the harnessing of energy resources like petroleum. Lush habitats for countless species are more and more in danger sounding the bells of extinction for the imperiled southern wild.

Human-alteration has severely damaged the wetland marshes and swamps that would have protected New Orleans from drowning in the water surge that Hurricane Katrina brought from the Gulf of Mexico. The latter is something that lifelong residents (i.e., indigenous coastal groups) of the Mississippi River Mouth have been pointing to for a  long time. Over the past century, the river delta’s “natural” infrastructure has been altered by the leveeing of the Mississippi River. Consequently, much of the silt and sediments that would generally run south and deposit in the river mouth to refeed the delta get siphoned off earlier upstream by various irrigation systems.

While some actors see it as a futile effort, there have been many proposals to restore the Mississippi River Delta. For instance, the aerial planting of mangrove seeds has even been recommended to help protect the struggling marshes and Louisiana’s coastal region. Tierra Resources, a wetland’s restoration company, proposed that bombing Lousiana’s coast with mangrove seeds could save it. Mangrove root systems are especially useful in providing structures to trap sediments and provide habitats for countless species. Additionally, mangroves have been touted as highly efficient species in carbon sequestration, thus taking carbon dioxide out of the biosphere.

Species diffusion into new environments has been of great concern for the different lifeways these soggy localities sustain, whether human or non-human. Many so-called “invasive species” have been identified throughout the river delta by researchers at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research hosted by Tulane and Xavier University. Such species have disrupted local ecological relations and practices and have had profound economic effects. Some plants have even entirely blocked waterways in the swamps and estuaries where salt and freshwater mix. 

Louisiana’s humid subtropical climate, and the diverse ecosystems therein, also warrant attention in that they can incubate some of the world’s deadliest parasites and other microbes. Of particular concern would be some of today's Neglected Tropical Diseases (i.e., Chagas, Cysticercosis, Dengue fever, Leishmaniasis, Schistosomiasis, Trachoma, Toxocariasis, and West Nile virus) often perceived as only affecting tropical regions of Latin America and revealing the enduring legacies of colonial health disparities.

How and when are seemingly quotidian events and upsets understood as not isolated but rather as produced in conjunction with other anthropocenics worldwide? What roles will interspecies relations and forms of care play as we cope with further anthropocenic agitation?

NOLA’s oldest tree, McDonogh Oak in City Park, 800 years old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9YoGpng_c&t=0s

Other trees in New Orleans: https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/new-orleans-louisiana/trees