Search

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?

The author of this article obviously toured the facility to see the structure of the switch station, the author states that most switch stations are ugly, but when you combine art to the walls it can be quite pleasing to the eye.  The author also spoke with the Mayor of the City of Newark to get his take on the development and the purpose.  

The Aim of this organization is to examine the dangers and amount of lead water in Newark. The article states that Newark water department exceeded the federal "level" for lead in it's water.  

This article explains the horrible effect Sandy had on the Shore area.  The devastation to the entire area.  People sufffered and are still suffering. This article shows interviews from many different people on how they over came and built back from Sandy.  

This article explains that there is still desvestation from Hurrican Sandy.  Raw sweage seeped in the Passica River and the efforts to remove it still exist.  New Jersey's infrasture is very  vulnerable.  The DEP developed a 230 million system to build flood walls and hopefully this will help in case of future storm.  

The author of this article obviously toured the facility to see the structure of the switch station, the author states that most switch stations are ugly, but when you combine art to the walls it can be quite pleasing to the eye.  The author also spoke with the Mayor of the City of Newark to get his take on the development and the purpose.  

 "The Secret Sauce" "Mayor Ras Baraka jokingly called the art/collaboration joked about Newark’s seemingly forever-ongoing revitalization. Alluding to the process that created the building he stood in front of, Baraka called art and collaboration—between public and private, between community and architect—the “secret sauce” of successful neighborhood revitalization".

stated by David Adjaye  “What I’ve learned in architecture and design is that, when the opportunity seems complicated, that’s when your creativity has to rise to that opportunity,” firm principal David Adjaye told the crowd. 

The article points out how in need the city was of the switch station, after Super Storm Sandy, many over half of the residents were out of power, this due in large to the poor infrastructure and the way it handled overloads when a diasester hit.  The switch station would elimnate all of those issue by upgrading the infrastructure to handle issues in extreme weather conditions.  

The switch station will help in the future if another storm occurs.  This will reassure the reisdences of the city that power will be restore quickly or they will not loose power all together. Along with that the switch station is not an eye sore, the residence of Newark made it very clear that was on of the requirements that the facility not be ugly.  

This article.video explains how a bunch of grade school children decided to learn how to prepare for emergency storm situations.  The FEMA for kids organization came to First Avenue School in Newark, NJ and put on a presentation how to plan and organize when a disaster stricks.  The FEMA organization explained how to keep your pets safe what you need to have availiable for your pet, food, blanket's etc.  They also reviewed first aid kits and what to place in the kits, bandages, antibotics, bandaids. etc.