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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 main argument in this film is that there is a clear lack of infrastructure in Liberia. Points of intervention that would build more infrastructure or provide better public health education would be good points of intervention. 

According to Google Scholar, this article has only been cited once. The publication's name is "Documenting Attacks on Health Workers and Facilities in Armed Conflicts." This publication discusses attacks on health facilities and workers in Afghanistan, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen.

OSHA was created with the Occupational Safe and Health Act of 1970 and is part of the US Department of Labor. The legislation was passed because the system of mass production used in the US encouraged the use of machinery, but there was nothing to protect workplace safety. For most employers, it was cheaper to replace a dead or injured worker than it was to introduce safety measures. Many states also enacted workers' compensation laws as labor unions began to become more popular. These laws discouraged employers from permitting unsafe workplaces. A chemical revolution also introduced chemical compounds into the workplace, which jeopardized the safety of workers. These events led to the creation of the legislation and OSHA, highlighting their primary mission.

This policy is in reference to refugees seeking political asylum. Its initial aim was to define what a refugee is and outline how they should be treated and accepted. They acknowledge the problems relating to refugee travels and documents needed, problems regarding keeping family units together, as this is an essential right of a refugee. They also mention that refugees are a vulnerable group, and as such, require some degree of welfare services. They stress the importance of international cooperation and understanding that refugees need protection. Finally, they outline the treatment of refugees. This is an extensive document and policy, containing 46 Articles.  

This was created post-Katrina as a result of failures in disaster leadership. They saw that there as a lack of an organization that focused on leadership and resiliency in producing effective programs or outcomes, which makes DRLS so unique. 

• "For far too long Inuit have been taking their lives or attempting to take their lives. In fact, Inuit have the highest suicide rates in the world"
• "...if these statistics were reflected in the general population, there would be an uproar and lasting change."
• "A focus on mental health, to me, is of the construct of Western European psychological thinking which I think will try to hem the matter into a very small area of inquiry when in fact the discussion has to be much more broadly based."

From the reviews in the iTunes App Store, it appears that healthcare providers do use the app. One review says that it is useful for working in lab or class settings as well.