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Omar Pérez: Submarine Roots, Resisting (un)natural disasters

omarperez

I am interested in seeing how social ties and networks have been used to cope with (un)natural disasters. My research focus on places under disasters conditions such as Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria, in which social ties have made the difference between life and death. Furthermore, “natural” disaster has been used to approved austerity measures and unjust policies to impoverished communities like in New Orleans after Katrina. These policies were not new, as they are rooted in structures of power to preserve the status quo. Yet, people have resisted, “through a network of branches, cultures, and geographies” that has stimulated a reflective process of looking within for solutions rather than outside. As often this outside solutions are not only detached from community’s reality but can perpetuate social injustices and inequalities.

McKittrick, K., & Woods, C. A. (Eds.). (2007). Black geographies and the politics of place. South End Press.

Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2009). Race, place, and environmental justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to reclaim, rebuild, and revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Westview Press.

Annotated Bibliography (EIS)

This link complements the Essay Bibliography of the Project Environmental Justice framing implications in the EIS.

EPA Database on EISs

This (EIS) database provides information about EISs provided by federal agencies, and EPA's comments concerning the EIS process.

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Zackery.White
Annotation of

This article discusses the health and living inequalities faced by individuals housed in Rikers correctional facilities. It discusses that when individuals are housed there they live in subpar conditions with very little representation in legislature. The infrastructure is crumbling and residences prone to flooding. It also touches on the life lived by post-incarceration individiuals. The end tells of the hardships faced by those because it leaves them without a steady home, very little financial assistance, and a sense of self destruction. 

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Zackery.White

Katrina, being that astronomical disaster that it was, has a response factor on a whole new level. The article touches on the response both immediately after and in a longer term context. It touches upon the aid provided by relief agencies throughout and the difficulties faced by those organizations due to scarcity and over demand of recourses.

 

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Zackery.White

“The legacy of Chernobyl has been used as a means of signaling Ukraine's domestic and international legitimacy and staking territorial claims; and as a venue of governance and state building, social welfare, and corruption.”

"Citizens, have come to depend on obtainable technologies and legal procedures to gain political regongition and admission to some form of welfare inclusion."

"She told me that Ukrainians were inflating their numbers of exposed persons, that their so-called invalids "didn't want cover." She saw the illnesses of this group as a "struggle for power and mater sources related to the disaster."