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COVID19 Places: India

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This essay scaffolds a discussion of how COVID19 is unfolding in India. A central question this essay hopes to build towards is: If we examine the ways COVID19 is unfolding in India, does "Ind

COVID-19 as Disaster

Photo essay curating insights from critical disaster studies for the transnational disaster STS COVID-19 project. 

COVID-19 as Disaster

COVID-19 as Disaster

Digital collection supporting a Transnational Disaster STS COVID-19 Collaboration Call, Thursday, July 9, 2020. 

Covid-19 may be compuounded by both Anti-Blackness and preceding disasters

Roberto E. Barrios

In New Orleans, African American communities were not only hit hard by Katrina's floods, but also by violent policing during the catastrophe and a disaster "recovery" effort that was fundamentally Anti-Black (closing of publich housing and the privatization of schools and health care). Recovery efforts were not organized along ideals of racial justice that would have addressed gaps in educational and health care resources. Instead, they were imagined along neoliberal principles that systematically excluded the city's Black population. I am interested in looking into how the Anti-Blackness of Katrina "recovery" set the stage for the virulent way COVID 19 is affecting New Orleans' African American communities.

In the US Virgin Islands, Hurricanes Maria and Irma decimated what were already decrepit public school and public health systems. Public schools and hospitals had not been property repaired and remained under-supported as of early March 2020. In places like the Island of St. Croix, residents reported the hospital having only one physicial on staff, and indicated fear of misdiagnosis and prolonged waiting times kept them from seeking health care there. The clientelle of the public health system is predominantly Afro and Hispanic Caribbean. Meanwhile, US "mainlanders" (who are predominantly white) are reported to seek their healthcare off island, something only those with ample financial resources can do. Infection rates and fatality rates for the USVI seem rather low from official reports, but it is important to find out if this is because testing itself is not readily avialable in the territory.

Disproportionate and violent policing of racial/ethnic minorities has continued and evloved.

Roberto E. Barrios

Media coverage from hard-hit cities suggests there is a disproportionate number of arrests and citations related to enforcement of social distancing among racial minorities.

Also, police response seems to have followed very different patterns in the case of "re-open" protests and anti-police brutality protests.

Scale and "Community"

kgupta

Thinking through this article and Vermeylen's, something we might consider in ATX is how we conceptualize community itself. It is so easy in EJ-contexts to make communities our object of study and analysis, which can erase identities and exclusions within them...

How is ecological harm and gentrification experienced by LGBTQ people in Austin? Women? Etcetera?