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Pödelwitz is an activist initiative  in the central german coal district, which is located in a village which was supposed to be evacuated for a planned expansion of a neighboring coal mine. After successfully resisting this expansion, the activists now promote social-ecological transformation in the village and the wider region. I will collaborate with them as part of my project in C-urge to study the role of justice in such transformations. Thereby we hope to arrive at an understanding of justice that is not opposed to urgent societal transformation in light of climate change, but a means of achieving this.

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.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security that was founded on June 19, 1978. The agency's primary purpose is to coordinate the emergency and recovery response efforts to a disaster that occurs within the United States. 

The author supports the main argument primarily by relying on anecdotal evidence from interviews with patients and individuals and on statistics on patients in the regions focused on by the author.

The authors relied principally on data procured through two research workshops conducted and on anecdotal evidence gathered.

The aforementioned research article was created by Andrew Lakoff of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Stephen Collier of The New School in New York City. Mr. Lakoff has a background in social theory, medical anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Mr. Collier holds a doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of California Berkeley and was a former chair and associate professor in the Department of International Affairs at The New School. The two authors have collaborated previously on several research articles pertaining to global health, security, and biopolitics.