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What I find really noteworthy in this text is how Julia Watts Belser takes the poem by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and includes it into a scientific text. In this way, she not only allows an affected person to have her say, the poem also leaves the reader with a very striking image of the connection between the river and the body, in multiple ways, as well as the connection between enviromental harm and disability.

The text was published in 2020 (Vol. 40, No. 4) by The Ohio State University Libraries in their Journal Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ). It is, as you can read on their Homepage "a multidisciplinary and international journal of interest to social scientists, scholars in the humanities and arts, disability rights advocates, and others concerned with the issues of people with disabilities. It represents the full range of methods, epistemologies, perspectives, and content that the field of disability studies embraces. DSQ is committed to developing theoretical and practical knowledge about disability and to promoting the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities in society."

The author connects disability theories and activism with environmental justice, this approach allows her to show how disability is related to and through environmental harm, she shows how diagnoses are used politically in these cases, and looks critically at how these processes determine how, when and in what favor human and environmental harm is taken into account. The writing is shaped by the consequences of the Anthropocene like environmental harm linked to health isusses, especially affected are communities of color and poor communities in the United States, here pre-existing patters of structural inequality, already known from climate change come into play,  this communities are the most affected and the least responsible.

The text left me with a question that I actually often find frustrating in the process of research. On page 6, the authors take up the criticism of a Fukushima resident who says: “[W]hat you call research does not give benefits to local people” (Miyamoto and Ankei, 2008, cited in Ankei, 2013, p.24). The authors here suggest adopting or borrowing terms from the field that are used by citizens to create a more “socially robust science” (Bonhoure et al. 2019, Nowotny, 2003). From the authors' point of view, this can be achieved above all by paying closer and careful attention to the language of citizen organizations and the contexts these groups work in. After further elaboration, the authors call for citizen science terms and concepts developed by, for and with citizens to better reflect the values, priorities, and stakes of its main agents and of all concerned parties. But I am not sure that this approach alone would be sufficient to adequately address such expressed criticism. Perhaps one should ask about the expectations of people one is researching with/about in order to enter into a conversation and to be able to understand this criticism. Perhaps the authors will address this point again in further publications. I think to ask oneself how to deal with this criticism methodically and ethically could also be very fruitful for empirical research in general.

Rikers Island: The subject of this article, it's NYC's main jail complex. It is under scrutiny for poor living conditions of inmates.

Hailey-Means: Interviewed for this article, she was incarcerated in 2015 provides insight into the horribly smelly and toxic conditions she experienced. She is quoted and cited nearly 20 times about solitary and other aspects of the jail.

The New York Times: They were mentioned in the article as having published and spoken out against the violence and human rights issues at Rikers.  

Preet Bharara: US attorney for Southern District of NY who, as of 2014 planned to sue the city for abuse of inmates on the island.

Michael Bloomberg: His run as Mayor was cited when he announced the city's evacuation plan, which did not include a plan or route for Rikers island at all. 

Johnny Perez: A past detainee of Rikers who revealed the extreme temperatures that are reached inside cells and the jail itself. He is now workign to reduce the population and close the jail. He is also now part of the Urban Justice Center.

Susi Vassallo: Conducted temperature monitoring on Rikers Island. She is a professor at NYU med. She determined that the temperature extremes were a seriously health threat and unsafe. 

New York City Panel on Climate Change: Is cited in the article in order to show the extremes that temperature are expected to get by 2080, proving to be a complication for Rikers and it's inmates.  

Carvett Gentles: Another inmate who discusses the oven feeling of his cell and how he has fainted before due to it.

Omar Smith: Was incarcerated in 2014, he has had severe asthma that developed while at Rikers, coughing up blood is something that isn't new to him due to pollution in the area it is speculated. 

Bill de Blasio: Mayor of NYC, he is calling for reform of the jail and has allocated 200 million for upgrades and renovations for Rikers. 

Department of Corrections: Responsible for care and detention of inmates in NY state. In this article they acknowledge the need for improvements in the jail.

Freddie McGrier: Another inmate that was interviewed and confirmed atrociously hot temperatures inside the jail. He states his heart is affected as well as his migraines because of the heat.