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Omar Pérez: Submarine Roots, Resisting (un)natural disasters

omarperez

I am interested in seeing how social ties and networks have been used to cope with (un)natural disasters. My research focus on places under disasters conditions such as Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria, in which social ties have made the difference between life and death. Furthermore, “natural” disaster has been used to approved austerity measures and unjust policies to impoverished communities like in New Orleans after Katrina. These policies were not new, as they are rooted in structures of power to preserve the status quo. Yet, people have resisted, “through a network of branches, cultures, and geographies” that has stimulated a reflective process of looking within for solutions rather than outside. As often this outside solutions are not only detached from community’s reality but can perpetuate social injustices and inequalities.

McKittrick, K., & Woods, C. A. (Eds.). (2007). Black geographies and the politics of place. South End Press.

Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2009). Race, place, and environmental justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to reclaim, rebuild, and revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Westview Press.

Annotated Bibliography (EIS)

This link complements the Essay Bibliography of the Project Environmental Justice framing implications in the EIS.

EPA Database on EISs

This (EIS) database provides information about EISs provided by federal agencies, and EPA's comments concerning the EIS process.

Copyright Basics

Website with an excellent (and brief) explanation of fair use to copyrighted materials, along with a useful fair-use checklist that can be used to assist in fair-use analysis.

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Sara.Till

"The deputy chief of Russia's nuclear operator, Rosatom's Nikolai Spassky, suggested that international law should force countries operation nuclear plants to abide by international safety standards. This proposal amounts to a recognition of the international character of the nuclear energy industry, but it remains unclear as to who would enforce such rules and how-- as of this writing, no international agency has such powers." Schmid, 199

"What knowledge should nuclear safety be based upon, where the science is still contested? And how useful is the notion of transparency in a context where the operation of nuclear power plants is considered an "inalienable right", as the text of probably today's single most important nuclear treaty states (IAEA 1970)? Nuclear specialists around the world are still discussing the existing emergency response organizations and the reasons they ultimately failed." Schmid, 200

"Anthropologists who have studied nuclear workplaces consistently find that the 'culture of control' (that is, attempts to regulate every last action of the operating staff) is too rigid to account for all imaginable situations." Schmid, 201