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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! 

The authors, Vicanne Adams, Taslim Van Hattum, and Diana English work at the University of California San Francisco in the department of anthropology, history, and social medicine. The department’s research includes aspects of global health, social theory, critical medical anthropology, and disaster recovery.

In addition to this article I looked further into the Chirnoble disaster, the IAEA policies, and where there are nuclear plants in the United States. 

This policy was drafted by Congress as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act and passed in 1986 to address Medicare related issues. 

“we have seen that it is possible to decrease the extent to which social inequalities become embodied as health disparities”

“National health insurance and other social safety nets, including those that guarantee primary education, food security, and clean water, are important because they promise rights, rather than commodities, to citizens.”

“: structural violence remains a high­ranking cause of premature death and disability”

The authors made use of interviews and conclusions from various research workshops to produce the claims in this article.

The authors used reports and statistics from international health organizations such as WHO. They also gathered information from think tanks like RAND. Additionally, to support the claims made in this article the authors looked at how biological outbreaks and threats were dealt with in the past, specifically World War II and the wars with Iran. 

This organization operates within low socioeconomical regions. These are regions that are typically war zones or are high in violence. This has shaped their way of conceiving disaster in that they believe everyone should be provided care. 

The article discusses the cares and the decisions made in regards to patient care at a hospital during hurricane Katrina. A team of doctors decided to euthanize several patients who were suffering and likely would not receive care or live much longer anyway. While, the team of medical professionals made this choice morally and to relieve the patients of their suffering they are still subject to malpractice claims and breaking protocol. The article suggests a disconnect between those working in the field alongside patients and those making rules and regulations.