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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.

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! 

This website itself doesn't translate the data into information. Researchers collect the data, run analyses and tests, and then post them on the site for the public as well as other researchers. The website doesn't translate or post any data, registry staff does. Participants also do not enter the information into the website. Any information participants need to update or provide must be given directly to the registry staff.

I researched Rikers island's history of inmate treatment, any documented cases of abuse as well as medical protocols they have intact. I also researched how medical care works in jails in general and what common afflictions and issues doctors may see with inmates. The effect Rikers island has on the surrounding areas, environmentally was also researched. 

The article's bibliography is very long and thorough, as well as extensive. There are hundreds of citations of other papers and articles on the topic, as well as  assessments and memorandums from numerous governmental agencies such as FEMA, Homeland Security and Federation of America. There are also new outlet citations and policy citations. This all goes to show that the research that went into this article is very heavy and intense, which provides it with much detail and allows for it to be an excellent source of information and recollection of the effects Katrina has had and still has on those affected. 

Google Scholar shows that this article has been cited in more than 40 different works. All have to do with global health due and epidimology. Some of the papers it has been cited in include:

The geography of post-disaster mental health: spatial patterning of psychological vulnerability and resilience factors in New York City after Hurricane Sandy

Life course epidemiology of trauma and related psychopathology in civilian populations

Volunteerism and well-being in the context of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks

Harmful Workplace Experiences and Women's Occupational Well-Being A Meta-Analysis

Data for this report was collected from other sources and forms of documentation as early as the day of the event. Information and details such as population sizes, weather conditions that day, human population distribution and more were all information collected from that day of the event. Other forms of data collected, ranging over the time of the event occurring to the publication time, include factors such as the quality of the air, water, animals and living conditions surrounding the plant. Human radiation levels and infection were also gathered, radiation levels of crops and much, much more were all statistics and data collected over roughly twenty year timespan that this report covers. This is actually one of the main driving points of the report, listed in the title "twenty years of experience." It compiles 20 years of research and findings into one large report.

After the Fukushima disaster, thyroid examinations were performed on residents less than 18 years of age. The first three years post disaster are noted as the "Initial phase" and act as a control. Of those tested, 113 cases were suspected of or found to have thyroid malignancies, 99 of those underwent surgery. After this, the goal became to compare and observe prevalence of thyroid cancer in this initial screen program with historical controls based off if there was a nuclear disaster or not.

For this study, the observed/expected ratio was calculated for residents less than 20 years old. Observed prevalence of cancer was calculated using numbers found in the initial thyroid screening program mentioned above. Expected prevalence was then calculated by using a life-table method utilizing national estimates of thyroid cancer incidences before the disaster. The population of Fukushima was taken into account.  A 5 year cumulative risk of thyroid cancer incidences was calculated for the year of 2010.  This 5 year risk was then converted to a 1 year cumulative risk using a method called spline smoothing. Then the age-specific prevalence of thyroid cancer was estimated by multiplying the 0 year old population by the age specific risk in 2010. 

I have done research involving cancer rates and their correlation with power plants (in my case Indian Point.) Doing that research caused me to read hundreds of studies similar to this one where estimates are made using calculations based off cancer rates before the incident and then taking them and putting them into context of a post disaster area. I wouldn't quite say that this method is new or inventive but it follows similar methodology to other studies of this same caliber, yet there are aspects that make it more unique such as converting the 5 year to 1 year cumulative risk using a spline smoothing method. 

"Data from this study provide the opportunity for addressing not only problems of medical care and public health, but for reflecting on theoretical and methodological questions central to this book as well."

"As the interviews went on, it became evident that "fainting" is a cultural category often used to describe classical tonic--clonic seizures. However, the term is associated with a more general semantic domain that includes fainting occurring in times of acute distress or in the context of a life of suffering, and is less stigmatizing than the term "epilepsy."

"Narrative theory describes two aspects of plot: plot as the underlying structure of a story, and "emplotment'' as the activity of a reader or hearer of a story who engages imaginatively in making sense of the story. Both are relevant to the analysis of illness narratives."