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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.

As a researcher, I’m interested in the political, ecological, and cultural debates around mosquito-borne diseases and the solutions proposed to mitigate them.

When we received the task, my first impulse was to investigate about the contemporary effects of anthropogenic climate change in mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans. But I was afraid to make the same mistake that I did in my PhD research. I wrote my PhD proposal while based in the US, more specifically in New England, during the Zika epidemic, and proposed to understand how scientists were studying ecological climate change and mosquitoes in Brazil. However, once I arrived in the country the political climate was a much more pressing issue, with the dismantling of health and scientific institutions.

Thus, after our meeting yesterday, and Jason Ludwig’s reminder that the theme of our Field Campus is the plantation, I decided to focus on how it related to mosquitoes in New Orleans.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito and the yellow fever virus it can transmit are imbricated in the violent histories of settler-colonialism and slavery that define the plantation economy. The mosquito and the virus arrived in the Americas in the same ships that brought enslaved peoples from Africa. The city of New Orleans had its first yellow fever epidemic in 1796, with frequent epidemics happening between 1817 and 1905. What caused New Orleans to be the “City of the Dead,” as Kristin Gupta has indicated, was yellow fever. However, as historian Urmi Engineer Willoughby points out, the slave trade cannot explain alone the spread and persistance of the disease in the region: "Alterations to the landscape, combined with demographic changes resulting from the rise of sugar production, slavery, and urban growth all contributed to the region’s development as a yellow fever zone." For example, sugar cultivation created ideal conditions for mosquito proliferation because of the extensive landscape alteration and ecological instabilities, including heavy deforestation and the construction of drainage ditches and canals.

Historian Kathryn Olivarius examines how for whites "acclimatization" to the disease played a role in hierarchies with “acclimated” (immune) people at the top and a great mass of “unacclimated” (non-immune) people and how for black enslaved people "who were embodied capital, immunity enhanced the value and safety of that capital for their white owners, strengthening the set of racialized assumptions about the black body bolstering racial slavery."

As I continue to think through these topics, I wonder how both the historical materialities of the plantation and the contemporary anthropogenic changes might be influencing mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans nowadays? And more, how the regions’ histories of race and class might still be shaping the effects of these diseases and how debates about them are framed?

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 policy specifically includes elements directed specifically at first responders. This includes testing of various scenarios that contain possible Ebola cases. One of the main highlights of the taped press conference seemed to be communication between main health centers deemed fit to treat Ebola and urgent care/transporting facilities. This includes knowledge of first responders about which of these facilities can handle Ebola cases and how to treat a scene with a possible Ebola patient.

Scott G. Knowles: Department of History Head, Associate Professor in the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Drexel University. Dr. Knowles specifically focuses on disaster, risk, and technological history. Multiple publications also extend into public policy, modern disaster response, and future risks.

The program appears to be popular with both lawmakers and the public. Unfortunately, coverage of the organization appears to mostly come from articles about the founding physicians-- often in the form of alumni news. The foundation's home webpage does link to several outside articles and news sources involving relevant topics in prison health care. There also appears to be an on-going series in The Lancet focusing on HIV/AIDs, a main component of the Center's mission. Moreover, the Center seems to serve as a fantastic resource for the Warren Alpert Medical School students, as the school maintains a longstanding tradition of involvement in Rhode Island public health

Emily Goldmann, PhD, MPH: assistant research professor of Global Public Health at NYU College of Global Public Health. Previous research includes work within several public health consulting firms and employment in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bureau of Adult Mental Health; this work included surveillance of psychological distress, metal illness, hospitalization, and rapid assessment of mental health conditions following hurricane Sandy. 

Sandro Galea MD, MPH, DrPH: a Canadian/American board-certified emergency medicine physician and epidemiologist, Dr. Galea is the current dean of the BU School of Public Health and former chair of Epidemiology at Mailman School of Public Health (Columbia University). His research primarily centers on social production of health within urban populations, including mental health disorders such as mood-anxiety and substance abuse; extensive publications exploring health inequalities, epidemiology, and health within vulnerable populations. Dr. Galea has served on numerous boards and committees analyzing the consequences of mass traumas, including 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and numerous international conflicts. 

1) Attawapiskat: This First Nation region is described in the article as one of the most isolate and remote. Further research indicates not only is it geographically isolated, but it lacks significant resources, resulting in a high cost of living and a scarcity in certain goods. Moreover, the region is serviced by a nursing clinic (no physicians) and a team of 8 paramedics-- truly an under-served medical region.

2) Aboriginal Healing Foundation: Our Catholic high school curriculum involved an ethics class, which debated the mistreatment aboriginals in the name of evangelicalism. I chose to research the foundation and determine what made this special-- why were they able to be cited as making such progress, despite losing funding in a few years.

3) Sheridan: A young girl who came to symbolize the suicide epidemic in Attawapiskat, she was 1 of over 100 who attempted to commit suicide within the span of 7 months. The Vice article describing her life and circumstances shows hints of an adolescent wise beyond her years, quoted as saying "if there's no resources, there's not going to be any change" in her suicide recording. 

The article focuses more on the fallacies of our current approaches to medicine. Dr. Kramer contends that the public would benefit from physicians melding their current factual approaches with anecdotal methods as well. Particularly, the field of psychiatry, which dabbles in processes of the brain not yet understood. While Dr. Kramer acknowledges it is necessary to have a well-defined approach, using "stories" allows for a more enriched judgement and remind practitioners of the vast differences in human experience. 

As the data is from 1998, I would sincerely hope that the data has already encouraged responses. Nonetheless, at the very least, the data should be able to serve as a marker for progression in traumatic event services. While sexual assault is markedly different from other traumatic events, the data could also be extrapolated to other events with community ties. More pointedly, data from this study demonstrated where some of the gaps came between victims with the "best" service outcomes and those with the "worst". The primary difference between the "best" group and those in latter tears was in the legal system. These shortcomings appeared to emerge early on, with a discrepancy in whether their reports even made it to the desk of the prosecution from the police department. This indicates a shortcoming in the system, and a point which should be investigated to better victim outcomes moving forward. Sexual assault cases are rarely black and white, thus some detectives may be inclined to create personal judgments about the merit of a case before passing it along, thus leading to its exclusion. This is one of several differences in victim encounters leading to less desired outcomes.