尋找一個叫做家的地方
janey7875我訪問到的阿嬤也有在高度人力密集的產業中工作過,如餐飲、紡織等等,反映了當代大環境中原民來到都市的處境。都市原民作為台灣產業發展的推手之一,卻無法擁有安身立命的家,而被迫在各處流浪,直到近代才開啟了與政府溝通的橋樑,卻依然有種種難題需要克服。
我訪問到的阿嬤也有在高度人力密集的產業中工作過,如餐飲、紡織等等,反映了當代大環境中原民來到都市的處境。都市原民作為台灣產業發展的推手之一,卻無法擁有安身立命的家,而被迫在各處流浪,直到近代才開啟了與政府溝通的橋樑,卻依然有種種難題需要克服。
這次主要聊的是阿嬤們的遷移旅程,我們主要訪問到的是一對姊妹,年齡相差兩歲,在小學的時候因為有仲介介紹,一同來到台北工作。
以下是他們的遷移過程:
台東-花蓮-台北(有仲介介紹台北的工作,但很多人受騙被賣到妓院)-桃園-台北-新竹
小學因經濟因素離開台東,搭巴士到花蓮,再搭火車到台北(大概民國57年)
當你在搜尋器上打出那魯灣 新竹,會看到標題幾乎都是『全新開放絕美地景遊戲場!「那魯灣文化聚落」玩超快溜滑梯 』等等的文章,當你真正進去這個所謂『文化聚落』後,會發現原來這只是當權者的一種企圖,那魯灣所面臨的困境並非藉由地景遊戲場可以解決,但我發現這是一種政府慣用手法,將完全脫離脈絡的建築蓋在想要宣傳的地點上,當天進入社區後所看到的是兩種截然不同的景色,一方面可以理解政府為什麼需要對當地做重劃
This was our first time interviewing members of our tribal family, and we had the pleasure of interviewing three grandmothers.
META: Water seems to be one important medium through which NOLA envisions the “impacts” of the Anthropocene—scarcity, abundance, temporalities and spatial distributions, management of, and hazards that emerge in its context. Less is said about the causal or attributional aspects of the Anthropocene. How might water function as an entry point into the assemblages of local anthropocenics?
I found the NOLA Hazard Mitigation Plan for 2018, which frames the impacts of the Anthropocene as an intersection of weather extremes amid climate change and evolving vulnerabilities of its people. Four of seven items in the executive summary note water as central to local interventions: flood awareness, flood repair, flood mitigation, flood infrastructure. Too much water or water in the wrong places and the aftereffect of water on infrastructure and lives. One expression, then, is preparedness.
MACRO: Mitigation is an interesting analytic for the Anthropocene. In the US mitigation plans are shaped by the 1988 Stafford Act (which amended the 1974 Disaster Relief Act). Constraints on communities come through rules, regulations, policies, (dis)incentives, and surveillance by state and federal authorities. Much of this is bound by economic and administrative discourses.
Goals are set in this document—broken out by timelines, activities, priorities, and capabilities. Another expression is classification of anthropocenics by subfields and accounting metrics. How do we measure progress and what is deferred to the future, 5-10 years out from today, a goal that has no tangible accountability but is named and acknowledged. What are the practices of naming, responsibility, and making (in)visible in the Anthropocene?
BIO: One new initiative, Ready for Rain, in particular is of interest to me as it highlights the more neoliberal vision for how the public should self-regulate risk and mitigate harm. I hear this as an extension of a government agency program to make the nation Weather Ready. Other bullets highlight “green” buildings, energies, and infrastructures. These could be examples of how the city envisions the Anthropocene feedback loop of humans changing/planning for climate alterations, which is a fairly typical lens.
Some questions: What does the water do? What does the water know? If we trace water in all its instantiations (e.g. historical water, flow of water, chemistry of water, application of water, temperature of water), what do we learn about the future imaginaries of what NOLA will / could / ought to become?
Resilience is a term that is widely embraced by many in city management and planning. It holds the positive gloss not just of recovery but bouncing back better. To my ears, it has become one of many anthems of the Anthropocene, a kind of restrained tempo thrumming along through communities that will adapt to climate change (or seasonal-to-subseasonal climate variability post Trump). They will mitigate, innovate, transform, strategize in order to endure unanticipated shocks, both chronic and acute.
NOLA is one of 100 Resilient Cities named by the Rockefeller Foundation sometime in 2013. Like others selected across the globe, the city of New Orleans would benefit from the resources of a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO), an expert in resilience to be hired to work within city governance to develop a strategic plan; NOLA's was published in 2015. Selection of the cities for the "100 Resilient Cities" initiative was difficult, a competitive bid for resources based primarily on a city's recent experience with disaster, usually connected to a weather or climate extreme (e.g. hurricane, flood, etc). Resources were provided via the hierarchy of the CRO, sometimes to hire staff, develop training for the community, and create working groups and to write the stratetic plan. As one former directer of NOLA RC said of this opportunity provided by Katrina, the disaster that qualified NOLA for Rockefeller monies, it demonstrates the need for an the age of resilience. In what ways is resilience measured, accounted for, adjudicated and managed through or in spite of this strategic document?
The language of resilience includes many terms that I think of as a collective imaginary of utopian preparedness, a vision for a nation that is--in the parlance of the weather prediction community in which I work--weather ready. Through the filter of resilience, then, vulnerability (another problematic term) is eradicated through individual action, community engineering, and adherance to strategic policies like 100RC. Yet how does this image of NOLA, one of "mindful citizenry" engaged in "partnerships" around the city (terms used in their summary video), match with the realities of living in NOLA, today and in the everyday future?
Resilience is also a term widely critiqued in STS and the broader social science and humanistic disciplines. For good reason. Common questions in this literature: What counts as resilience? Who decides? At what costs? Resilience against what? What does resilience elide? How has the discourse of resilience reframed individual and community accountability? What is the political economy of resilience? I'm interested in the discourses of preparedness and planning, and "the eventness" of disaster, as Scott has highlighted many times. But my concern is not just to critique and tear down concepts like resilence (or vulnerability). I worry that we then evicerate common lexicons of hope and imaginaries of the future that do some good. How are we as field campus participants and those who re-envision or reveal the quotidian reflexive? How do we triage the Anthropocene amid our own state of compromise--as scholars, participants in Capitalism, in post colonialism, humans? What are our ethical commitments? How do we make good?
Resilience is a term that is widely embraced by many in city management and planning. It holds the positive gloss not just of recovery but bouncing back better. To my ears, it has become one of many anthems of the Anthropocene, a kind of restrained tempo thrumming along through communities that will adapt to climate change (or seasonal-to-subseasonal climate variability post Trump). They will mitigate, innovate, transform, strategize in order to endure unanticipated shocks, both chronic and acute.
NOLA is one of 100 Resilient Cities named by the Rockefeller Foundation sometime in 2013. Like others selected across the globe, the city of New Orleans would benefit from the resources of a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO), an expert in resilience to be hired to work within city governance to develop a strategic plan; NOLA's was published in 2015. Selection of the cities for the "100 Resilient Cities" initiative was difficult, a competitive bid for resources based primarily on a city's recent experience with disaster, usually connected to a weather or climate extreme (e.g. hurricane, flood, etc). Resources were provided via the hierarchy of the CRO, sometimes to hire staff, develop training for the community, and create working groups and to write the stratetic plan. As one former directer of NOLA RC said of this opportunity provided by Katrina, the disaster that qualified NOLA for Rockefeller monies, it demonstrates the need for an the age of resilience. In what ways is resilience measured, accounted for, adjudicated and managed through or in spite of this strategic document?
The language of resilience includes many terms that I think of as a collective imaginary of utopian preparedness, a vision for a nation that is--in the parlance of the weather prediction community in which I work--weather ready. Through the filter of resilience, then, vulnerability (another problematic term) is eradicated through individual action, community engineering, and adherance to strategic policies like 100RC. Yet how does this image of NOLA, one of "mindful citizenry" engaged in "partnerships" around the city (terms used in their summary video), match with the realities of living in NOLA, today and in the everyday future?
Resilience is also a term widely critiqued in STS and the broader social science and humanistic disciplines. For good reason. Common questions in this literature: What counts as resilience? Who decides? At what costs? Resilience against what? What does resilience elide? How has the discourse of resilience reframed individual and community accountability? What is the political economy of resilience? I'm interested in the discourses of preparedness and planning, and "the eventness" of disaster, as Scott has highlighted many times. But my concern is not just to critique and tear down concepts like resilence (or vulnerability). I worry that we then evicerate common lexicons of hope and imaginaries of the future that do some good. How are we as field campus participants and those who re-envision or reveal the quotidian reflexive? How do we triage the Anthropocene amid our own state of compromise--as scholars, participants in Capitalism, in post colonialism, humans? What are our ethical commitments? How do we make good?
The largest risk at hand would be how the nautral disaster, Hurricane Sandy, affected the beaches of New Jersey, causing some the beaches to lose a significant amount of sand; this becomes a risk because the beaches weren't available to use. The beaches of New Jersey make most of the profit in tourism: the shore gaining $35.5 billion for tourism locations. This became a risk becuase there was money lost during and after the storm, as groups tried to repair the shores. In addition, the cost to repair the shores were extremely costly. Another group that received risks and hazards were the communities near the shores: they had to change their entire lifestyle when the beaches were destroyed after the storm. Those communities had to learn how to live without the beaches' resources and had to get accustomed to not going down to the shores while the beaches were being restored.
After the storms, many towns affected came up with ways to increase protection in infrastructure. Town officials working alongside exerpts have been working to upgrade their plans on making their communities more resilient to natural disasters. There have also many several funds and donations for the towns affected by Sandy; there have also been ways on how to help prevent flooding in such areas. In the article, it discusses how "the DEP has worked with local officials to design a proposed $230 million federally-funded system of flood walls along the Hudson River for Hoboken and parts of Weehawken and Jersey City."