Skip to main content

Search

Tanya Matthan: Walsh and Austin's environmental history

tanyamatthan

Walsh's piece gives us a concise history and geography of environmental racism in Austin, by drawing our attention to how ineequality is written into city law and urban planning. The ongoing legacies of segregation have shaped social life from access to public services to access to recreational spaces. Given the foundations of environmental racism in zoning laws and land use regulations, so succinctly highlighted by Walsh, how does/must the process of energy transition address these issues? Can there be zoning for justice, and what would that look like? In what way can our work at the field campus contribute to the existing work being done by orgs like El Pueblo and PODER?

Ethical Obligations and the "After"

kgupta

Providing a historical overview of EJ-related issues and organzing in Austin, Walsh's piece gestures to the need for deep engagement with those already doing what we might consider 'quotidian anthropocenic' work in our field campus locations. What are our ethical relationships and obligations to those we collaborate with during our time physically in the city? What should they be after? How can our analytical contributions help organizations like PODER and other local activists fighting gentrification and biased zoning laws?

Autoethnography of Industry

AKPdL

The environmental legacies left behind by industrial production are pervasive in the air, the soil, and the water. This elemental elixer surrounds us.

In the field of STS, it is perhaps obvious to suggest that institutions have cultures, norms, standards, and professional ways of being. Yet, what are we to make of the results of industry telling its own past publically. The corporate origin story could be a footnote in Joseph's Campbells work. The allure of the lone individual working tirelessly until an innovation is produced and the market takes over. 

Yet, the Wood River Refinery tells a different story. One about place, about people, about the terrible minutia of life lived within bureaucracy. Yes, the story told is glossy and teleological, but the question emerges. What can be learned about the stories industry tells about itself? What do these artifacts contribute to histories and what weight do we give to these stories within the Anthropocene?

The factory at Wood River is both a place where labor is maximized for profit, but also where worker devote 40 precious hours of their week. Lives persist and even thrive in the factory. Are the stories of these lives at Wood River? 

pece_annotation_1476239166

Alexi Martin
Annotation of

The system was built to serve those who cannot afford mental health care and to those who are not educated on mental health disorders. This system was built was reduce problems such as: senseless violence, broken families, lost productivity, and costly physical illness from mental disorders- the app can help these issues over time. To ultimately build healthier communities, workplaces, homes, personal relationships, preventing these in future generations.

pece_annotation_1476239204

Alexi Martin
Annotation of

The system provides patient and provider sessions via video call, track daily behavior and improvement, clinical expertise, authorization to see your data, to find providers, credentialed counseling, appointments on the go, session history and patient profiles, full scheduling and provider bio, tracked progress, assessments of mental health, automated payments, systems integration, operational analytics and coordinated care.

pece_annotation_1476239221

Alexi Martin
Annotation of
In response to

The data is visualized on an easy to read dashboard with labelled features, a personalized profile, ability to video chat, chats that track emotional and mental status via app and sensors, secured servers, ability to find providers, etc.

pece_annotation_1476239242

Alexi Martin
Annotation of

The functions are technically supported through operational analytics- chemical data points that allow more guidelines and recovery plans to be built, a secure infrastructure that allows easy and secure transfers of information for health records and payments, coordination of care between healthcare providers at a touch of a button.