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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! 

Emergency response is briefly mentioned as something to consider in risk vs security in situations. The safety of emergency responders is important, but making every person take measures to prevent every disease may not be practical. The importance of vaccinating emergency responders was also mentioned.

The government should not edit the EPA's notices and warnings.

There should be far more safety information given to first responders and people living/working in a dangerous area. If they are not actively saving lives, they should not be risking their own lives - like in the rubble cleanup for 9/11.

The object of this study is to analyze the rates of intimate partner violence before and after Hurricane Katrina, and look at the causes for the increases found.

Emily Goldmann is an expert in looking at factors of mental health. She has a masters and PhD in epidemiology, and is a research assistant professor at NYU. Sandro Galea is a physician and epidemiologist. The two have a great deal of experience in health care and in examining how mental health can be improved or worsened by a variety of additional factors.

Adrianna Petryna has a PhD in anthropology and is a professor of such at the University of Pennsylvania. This shows that she has a background in the humanity and relations perspective of the issues that she addresses. Therefore, the scientific information about Chernobyl and other situations she discusses are likely based on research that she read, rather than on her own reasearch and experiences,.

I looked up Turkish marriage traditions, EMS systems, and the languages spoken.

Many of the citations are from the MSF compilation, but others are clearly other studies or research articles. They are all from the past 20 years or so, since humanitarian and womens' sexual rights gained popularity and momentum around that time.