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In Louisiana, governing elites have long found it more profitable to deny the connections between health outcomes and the structural inequities of an anti-Black petrostate. Their denial is made possible by the existence of data divergence–that is, inconsistencies between data sets or between a data set and the realities it purports to represent (Encyclopedia of Social Measurement 2005). These inconsistencies range from missing or “undone” (i.e. incomplete or ignored) data (Frickel et al. 2007) to the production of different measures (and the selection of different priorities) by institutional silos. Recognition of the need for public health capacities that address the systems and structures impacting health–especially children’s health–has motivated health equity advocates in Louisiana to fill the data gaps through collaborative datawork, that is, the work of making data meaningful across social and scientific communities. In 2022, a coalition of community organizations, academic researchers, and public health workers led by the Louisiana Center for Health Equity (LCHE), a community-based organization created by a registered nurse, worked together to examine the links between adolescent mental health and disciplinary practices in schools. Ensuring their agendas were informed by community priorities led them to incorporate the contributions of adolescents advocating for better access to physical and mental healthcare resources and the abolishment of discriminatory and punitive disciplinary actions in schools. Their collaborative datawork revealed how data gaps around adolescent mental health are a structuring component of schools’ discriminatory and punitive climates–much as gaps in environmental health data benefit polluting industries. They found that existing figures around adolescent mental health are inaccurate, as many youth are unable to receive an official diagnosis owing to lack of healthcare access. LCHE advocates at a house committee meeting in January 2023 reported that students who exhibit behavioral issues rooted in trauma or mental health more often receive punitive disciplinary actions rather than rehabilitative and restorative services. This work generated the support needed to pass legislation to expand public health infrastructure and access to mental health resources. In June 2023, House Bill 353 authorized the allotment of "mental health days" as an excused absence for students; introduced procedures for schools to connect students to medical treatment and services; and required the Louisiana Department of Education to develop and administer a pilot program for implementing mental health screening, among other changes. By mobilizing advocates and scholars from across the social and institutional silos, LCHE’s collaborative datawork tentatively expanded children’s public health infrastructures. 

Fisher, Margaux. 2023. "Collaborative Datawork and Reframing Adolescent Mental Health in the Deep South." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

The political process is also always a learning process, a process of attunement. And becoming attuned to relations of power also means becoming compromised, to a certain degree, despite whether this attunement takes the form of compliance or resistance. For instance, the oil and gas industry has had a large influence on the structure and character of renewable energy advocacy in Austin, Texas, even as it was being developed as a strategy of resistance to petroculture. In particular, there was the purposeful move to imitate the mineral rights contracts that the oil and gas industry had developed in order to drill on private land, creating similarly structured leasing agreements for what would come to be known as “wind farms” in many of the same locations as former drilling sites. The idea here was to create a wealthy landowning class that could help lobby for renewable energy, much like previous land owners had for the oil and gas industry. Secondly, the Texas Renewable Energy Industry Association (TREIA) collectively decided to invite the utility industry to join their ranks in order to pursue renewable energy at the utility scale through the use of Renewable Portfolio Standards. And while Austin’s early energy advocates still speak of this as a winning strategy (and indeed it was), it also reproduced the utility as a center of power and promoted a top-down style of environmental advocacy that had long shut Austin's minoritized and marginalized communities out of its environmental benefits. Building support in this way, by appealing to those who are not only likely to share your perspective and its blindspots, but that have also already shaped the political landscape in their interest, this creates the perfect conditions for injustices to transpire, persist, and even intensify. Thus, part of the struggle for just transition entails keeping the question of what counts as environmental justice or injustice held open at the same time that the former is being pursued and/or the latter resisted. 

Adam, James. 2023. "Petro-ghosts." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.