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Editing with Contributor

Elena Sobrino: anti-carceral anthropocenics

elena

Why is the rate of incarceration in Louisiana so high? How do we critique the way prisons are part of infrastructural solutions to anthropocenic instabilities? As Angela Davis writes, “prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.” One way of imagining and building a vision of an anti-carceral future is practiced in the Solitary Gardens project here in New Orleans: 

The Solitary Gardens are constructed from the byproducts of sugarcane, cotton, tobacco and indigo- the largest chattel slave crops- which we grow on-site, exposing the illusion that slavery was abolished in the United States. The Solitary Gardens utilize the tools of prison abolition, permaculture, contemplative practices, and transformative justice to facilitate exchanges between persons subjected to solitary confinement and volunteer proxies on the “outside.” The beds are “gardened” by prisoners, known as Solitary Gardeners, through written exchanges, growing calendars and design templates. As the garden beds mature, the prison architecture is overpowered by plant life, proving that nature—like hope, love, and imagination—will ultimately triumph over the harm humans impose on ourselves and on the planet.

"Nature" here is constructed in a very particularistic way: as a redemptive force to harness in opposition to the wider oppressive system the architecture of a solitary confinement cell is a part of. It takes a lot of intellectual and political work to construct a counter-hegemonic nature, in other words. Gardeners in this setting strive toward a cultivation of relations antithetical to the isolationist, anti-collective sociality prisons (and in general, a society in which prisons are a permanent feature of crisis resolution) foster.

Elena Sobrino: toxic capitalism

elena

My interest in NOLA anthropocenics pivots on water, and particularly the ways in which capitalist regimes of value and waste specify, appropriate, and/or externalize forms of water. My research is concerned with water crises more generally, and geographically situated in Flint, Michigan. I thought I could best illustrate these interests with a sampling of photographs from a summer visit to NOLA back in 2017. At the time, four major confederate monuments around the city had just been taken down. For supplemental reading, I'm including an essay from political theorist Adolph Reed Jr. (who grew up in NOLA) that meditates on the long anti-racist struggle that led to this possibility, and flags the wider set of interventions that are urgently required to abolish the landscape of white supremacy. 

Flooded street after heavy rains due to failures of city pumping infrastructure.

A headline from the same week in the local press.

Some statues are gone but other monuments remain (this one is annotated).

A Starbucks in Lakeview remembering Katrina--the line signifies the height of the water at the time.

Reading:

Adolph Reed Jr., “Monumental Rubbish” https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/25/monumental-rubbish-statues-torn-down-what-next-new-orleans

P.S. In case the photos don't show up in the post I'm attaching them in a PDF document as well! 

The referenced media source is missing and needs to be re-embedded.

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Sara.Till

This article seems to be primarily cited by other articles concerning historical disasters. It appears, for the most part, to be very under-cited by the research community. This may be due to its nature as a primarily historical analysis of a very under represented issue. Many competing articles seem to focus on more substantial issues with direct effects on communities or directly point out failures that led to significant reduction in response capability. As argued in the article, it can be very difficult to press issues without public encouragement for the topic. 

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Sara.Till

1) Jean-Pierre Chevenement:  a key player in passing this immigration legislation, the leader has since stepped away from the political scene after running for the presidency in 2002. As the sitting minister, Mr. Chevenement has been described as a key member of the left; I'd be intrigued to see what other pieces of legislation he has worked on

2) Didier Fassin: Dr. Fassin, a reigning expert in french state anthropology, appears to bring an element of medical background to his analysis. Obviously, he seems to be a well-respected member of the anthropological community-- where and what other projects he has on-going would be interesting 

3) French healthcare: this type of legislation obviously puts a tremendous amount of strain on the general healthcare; depending on the system utilized by the French state, this could have a detrimental effect on the quality and timing of care delivered. 

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Sara.Till

While emergency response is not addressed as an overarching theme, this report focuses on the nuances of mental health within emergency response. A key, but often forgotten aspect of emergency response, the report seeks to better focus the treatment and study of mental health after an emergency. The report discusses how to better study mental illness in populations who have experienced trauma, which will further enable effective treatments. It also discusses a few interventions currently shown to help mitigate PTSD, MDD, and other disorders after a disaster event.

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Sara.Till

While there are clips of various spokesmen and women for the marine corps, I would have liked to see an interview with them directly. Particularly, a female appears several times to directly meet with the survivors of Camp Lejeune and to speak at the senate hearing (she's not listed on any outside resources). She serves as the "Marine Corps Representative", and appears to be reserved at best. Her view on the former residents and the situation would be intriguing.

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Sara.Till

1) Hocas: an anglicized ottoman-Turkish word meaning "master, professor, teacher"; it evolved from "khawaja", and is an honorific title given to a teacher of the Muslim faith, particularly a sufi teacher. 

2) Tonic-clonic seizure: formerly described as "grand mal seizures", they include two sections (hence the "tonic" and "clonic"). The tonic phase includes the initial rigor and consciousness, while the clonic phase is the characteristic muscle spasms. These phases each last around 1 minute and 3 minutes, respectively.

3) Jinns: anglicized to "genie", this is the term for a supernatural creature in the Muslim faith. Many of the patients interviewed in Dr. Good's work spoke of a terrifying event prior to the onset of their epilepsy, often involving the presence of a "jinn". 

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Sara.Till

1) "It is important to note that these changes that incorporated gender-based violence into the human rights realm also brought the law to bear as a primary instrument of change and struggle. Calling this ‘governance feminism’, Janet Halley argues that this was the work of a certain group of feminists who came together in the 1990s, taking criminal law as a primary instrument of reform, and working in a top-down fashion to institute punishment for a global war against women."

2) "This approach inherently limits the mode of intervention. The mandate of humanitarianism – again, as defined by the new wave of ‘sans frontiere-ism’ exemplified by ` MSF – is not to reform or improve the kind of life one lives, only to preserve life itself. And yet gender-based violence is about the kind of life one lives. Under the rubric of human rights, freedom from gender-based violence is part of a parcel of rights that define what it means to be human in ways that include the right to be free from violence, the right to equality and the right to dignity"

3) "In MSF’s General Assembly debate, Rony Brauman, the former president of MSF, suggested that rather than descending into politics, humanitarians should make a distinction between describing what one witnesses, and qualifying it, which entails making a judgement. He asked one of the MSF Holland representatives, ‘How do you know the women were raped? Did you see it happening?’ Brauman proposed sticking close to what one sees, and letting others take it from there – he felt strongly that MSF should not have called for action. For him, and many others, humanitarianism is not about justice, politics or taking sides. The MSF Holland representative responded that there was a slippery slope between political neutrality and irresponsibility, and a fierce debate ensued"