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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! 

Rikers is not safe for inmates due to a varitey of factors, for example, the CO2 emissions, the extreme heat, flooding, the emissions from the landfill, the narrow road that doesn't always allow ambulances to pass. The stench is also disgusting. There are arguments for the closing of the jail and improvemements to how money is spent within society, as well as "efforts" to improve the condition of the jails.

This policy applies to the U.S. healthcare system, all facilities that treat patients. It applies to the managers, staff, and patients at those locations, and those seeking treatment or evaluation, as it helps define the roles and expectations of a specific type of facility.

It is an international program with the following member states/countries and the year that they joined:

"1957: Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Monaco, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Socialist Federal Rep. of Yugoslavia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Viet Nam

• 1958: Belgium, Ecuador, Finland, Iran, Luxembourg, Mexico, Philippines, Sudan
• 1959: Iraq
• 1960: Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Senegal
• 1961: Lebanon, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• 1962: Liberia, Saudi Arabia
• 1963: Algeria, Bolivia, Côte d'Ivoire, Libya, Syria, Uruguay
• 1964: Cameroon, Gabon, Kuwait, Nigeria
• 1965: Costa Rica, Cyprus, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar
• 1966: Jordan, Panama
• 1967: Sierra Leone, Singapore, Uganda
• 1968: Liechtenstein
• 1969: Malaysia, Niger, Zambia
• 1970: Ireland
• 1972: Bangladesh
• 1973: Mongolia
• 1974: Mauritius
• 1976: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Tanzania
• 1977: Nicaragua
• 1983: Namibia
• 1984: China
• 1986: Zimbabwe
• 1992: Estonia, Slovenia
• 1993: Armenia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovakia
• 1994: The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Marshall Islands, Uzbekistan, Yemen
• 1995: Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 1996: Georgia
• 1997: Latvia, Malta, Moldova
• 1998: Burkina Faso
• 1999: Angola, Benin
• 2000: Tajikistan
• 2001: Azerbaijan, Central African Republic, Serbia
• 2002: Eritrea, Botswana
• 2003: Honduras, Seychelles, Kyrgyzstan
• 2004: Mauritania
• 2005: Chad
• 2006: Belize, Malawi, Montenegro, Mozambique
• 2007: Cabo Verde*
• 2008: Nepal, Palau
• 2009: Bahrain, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Lesotho, Oman
• 2011: Lao People's Democratic Republic, Tonga*
• 2012: Dominica, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago
• 2013: San Marino, Swaziland
• 2014: Bahamas, Brunei Darussalam, Comoros*
• 2015: Djibouti, Guyana, Vanuatu, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados
• 2016: Saint Lucia*, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines*, The Gambia*, Turkmenistan"

Events on the calendar are located in a number of different countries from the above list. The headquarters is in Vienna, Austria.

The Turkish culture associates "epillepsy" with mental retardation, so they usually refer to seizures as 'fainting". This can cause confusion when in a medical setting, as fainting and seizures are two different issues. The stories usually falled into one of five plot categories. The conditions were typically caused by a frightful experience, a childhood fever or injury, no apparent reason, chronic suffering, or an evil eye. These classifications help see trends and learn where improvements can be made.