Skip to main content

Search

(Non)Sharing Economies

mwenda

I am interested in the Macro scale and the macro effects evident at a city-scale level. I remember visiting New Orleans in 2016 and vividly remember seeing several signs with a large 'No' symbol drawn and the text  "neighbors not tourists" printed on the sign. Recently, as part of my research into New Orleans, I stumbled on this piece by the Guardian on how short-term rentals through platforms such as Airbnb are leading to gentrification in New Orleans. Highlighted in the article is how several Airbnb hosts do not reside on the listed premises. I remember the place we stayed, as we were a large party, having a 617 prefix number.  The prefix stood out as I knew the code 617 represented Boston and was curious what someone with ties to Boston doing in New Orleans as a host. In a similar vein, the article also highlights the problem of absentee hosts, hosts who acquire property for the sole purpose of setting up the property as an Airbnb site.

To tackle the problem, one councilwoman passed a law that required any Airbnb hosts in residential zones to have a homestead exemption verifying they live on site. In this case, a city-wide measure was taken and passed into law affecting the micro. It is common to have one host having several properties in different residential areas in New Orleans. From a technical standpoint, it could be viewed that Airbnb as technology is developed and presented as a scalable product. With no limits to reproducibility. Meanwhile, real-life discontinuities exist in the form of such homestead laws. It is impossible to live in more than one homestead at the same time. In other words, the concept of the human is not scalable.
Likewise, neither is cultural heritage. The city of New Orleans positions its self as a city with great cultural heritage. It is through this heritage that they seek to draw more and more tourists. How do cities think of scaling up successful initiatives and how do they navigate the political, social, ecological, or economic entanglements. At what point is downscaling necessary? Is culture scalable?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/13/new-orleans-airbnb-trem…

QUOTIDIAN ANTHROPOCENES: NEW ORLEANS

mwenda

I am currently a Ph.D. student interested in exploring the entanglements of scale, especially in the context of environmental sensing.  My primary research seeks to engage in discourse around the value of scalability that is presented as inherent in computation. While the term scale-up is almost synonymous with computation, sustainability; on the other hand, is known as a problem of scale. Take for example, the discourse on climate change where the actions required to combat climate change requires interventions at different scales. In this context, demanding changes at individual scales while no corresponding changes happen at larger scales would not yield much.

In looking at New Orleans, I came across a video on IoT cameras developed by Cisco, the networking giant. What struck me other than the apparent rise of surveillance capitalism was the narrative of one of the police officers highlighted in the video. The officer mentions that it is not feasible for the city to place police officers on every corner. In the context of scale, the police officer is implying that cameras are useful as they extend the police officer's ability to surveil the city. In other words, cameras and the networks help scale up the police officer, making it possible for them to cover a larger scale than before.

One of the police officers, in the video, also mentions that New Orleans is a tourist and hospitable town. Which brings up the question at any given period, what scale of visitors can New Orleans support without stretching the city's resources? Several other cities in the world have made efforts to limit visitors, in order not stretch city resources. The recent crisis at Mount Everest is an excellent example of what happens when resources are stretched to accommodate the increasing number of local visitors. How could something of this nature similarly impact New Orleans?

At the communication center where the video feed is analyzed, the IT manager provides reasons as to why they chose Cisco as their vendor. One of the reasons he gives was that the system is easily expandable, allowing the ability to scale out/up the network.

pece_annotation_1479010309

wolmad

This article utilizes excerpts from interviews to illustrate the story narrative of an illness, showing how emotion and values are reflected in the creation of a "plot" of the narrative, and uses statistics and broader research to analize these stories from a broader, more societal perspective. 

pece_annotation_1473351417

wolmad
Annotation of

With every new disaster it faces, the ARC draws much on its own research and the experiances of the Global Red Cross. Recent major domsetic disasters the ARC has faced include Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, 

pece_annotation_1480177750

wolmad

I looked into the history of the MSF, the Congo Republic's Civil War, and international policy regarding the treatment of sexual and gender based violance in the humanitarian community, including the security council legislation refereced in the article.

pece_annotation_1473867371

wolmad

The citations found in this article's bibliography tell us that the information presented was drawn from various research articles about past responses to large disease outbreaks, and public health policies regarding topics such as food safety and bioweapons. This article is an interpertation of existing information, and does not seem to provide any new research.

pece_annotation_1474470844

wolmad

I researched

1. Early fire response systems mentioned in the article, such as fireproof blankets, early fire extinguishers, and fireproof building construction

2. Underwriters Labs and other safety research labratories

3. The final reports on the cause of the WTC collapse

pece_annotation_1474990944

wolmad

Didier Fassin is a French anthropologist and a sociologist in the school of science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. He has conducted fieldwork in Senegal, Ecuador, South Africa, and France. Fassan is also trained as a physician in internal medicine and holds a degree in public health. Some of his early research focused on medical anthropology, the AIDS epidemic, mortality disparities, and global health.