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Luísa Reis-Castro: mosquitoes, race, and class

LuisaReisCastro
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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?

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a_chen
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Funded by Federal Government. e.g.

“ETA (Employment and Training Administration) invested approximately $13 million to turn Job Corps into a program where students gain industry-recognized credentials to meet the demands of the 21st century employer.” (Educational Program) [https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/documents/agencies/osec/stratpl…]

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a_chen
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Emergency responders are the MSF members in this film, they have to continue serve millions of patients with the lack of medical supplies and the worse medical conditions over the place. They have to deal with the communication difficulties and the uncooperative patients with the lack of understanding to their own health. Furthermore, they have to make decision of which patient gets help and serve. As they concluded in the film with one of the discussion they had, there is no ideal environment (situation) to plan and perform an ideal operation (surgery) in such places (~49:00 – 51:00).

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a_chen
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The data is visualized via a Dashboard for the Provider and Operational Analytics for the Organizations.

ž   Dashboard: Easily manage all of your patient communications with a concise dashboard for your provider profile, session scheduling and application settings. Also, view your patient’s profiles, session history and tracked progress.

ž   Operational Analytics: Cloud 9’s Personal Mental Health Record allows patients access from their mobile device that is always in reach. This creates exponentially more clinical data points to produce new recovery plans and accurate operational guidelines. Providers can then push adaptable, updated messages and reminders. Behavioral Health Provider & HR Optimization ensures high demand providers are accessed efficiently throughout care cycle, so “the right staff is with the right patient at the right time”. Managers easily leverage these new insights through Cloud 9’s Administrative Analytics.

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a_chen
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The convention can be applying to a State that is possibly involving in nuclear activities or might  have any nuclear effects to the surroundings. Or the state that can notify the accidents that in  the other states.   Due to 22 September 2014, there are 119 parties (states) subject to entry into force with 69  states signed the convention (Convention – Latest Status). 

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a_chen
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The translation for the system is managed by Transifex (not Ushahidi owned) with monthly plans for localised translation. In the case that the user not comfortable with English might be an issue to work with the system. Especially the reporters from the hard-reach areas with fewer educations. (They might deal with the problem of using technologies.)   

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a_chen
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There are two (2) courses for this program. For age 19-40 yrs.

  1. Rehabilitation Technicians - Assistant Physiotherapists (18 months)
  2. Orthoprosthetic Technicians (2 years – 2.5 years)
  • Learnt to design and repair prostheses
  • Assist a physiotherapist etc.
  • Practical work experience in hospital and rehabilitation units (support by a tutor)
  • Learnt to face the reality situations and deal with them