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Mutual Aid/Best Practices vs Local Practices

_jzhao

This image reminds me of how mutual aid and communities keep each other fed, and safe, and how local practices are actually best practices. My own research, although not immediatley related to the specific public health concern of COVID, will focus on Indigenous food soverignty, particularly the right and autonomy to ferment and distribute alcohol (紅糯米酒) within the Amis community, and their current fight with the local health department on declaring whether or not their alcohol is "safe" for public consumption and distribution.

(Non)Sharing Economies

mwenda

I am interested in the Macro scale and the macro effects evident at a city-scale level. I remember visiting New Orleans in 2016 and vividly remember seeing several signs with a large 'No' symbol drawn and the text  "neighbors not tourists" printed on the sign. Recently, as part of my research into New Orleans, I stumbled on this piece by the Guardian on how short-term rentals through platforms such as Airbnb are leading to gentrification in New Orleans. Highlighted in the article is how several Airbnb hosts do not reside on the listed premises. I remember the place we stayed, as we were a large party, having a 617 prefix number.  The prefix stood out as I knew the code 617 represented Boston and was curious what someone with ties to Boston doing in New Orleans as a host. In a similar vein, the article also highlights the problem of absentee hosts, hosts who acquire property for the sole purpose of setting up the property as an Airbnb site.

To tackle the problem, one councilwoman passed a law that required any Airbnb hosts in residential zones to have a homestead exemption verifying they live on site. In this case, a city-wide measure was taken and passed into law affecting the micro. It is common to have one host having several properties in different residential areas in New Orleans. From a technical standpoint, it could be viewed that Airbnb as technology is developed and presented as a scalable product. With no limits to reproducibility. Meanwhile, real-life discontinuities exist in the form of such homestead laws. It is impossible to live in more than one homestead at the same time. In other words, the concept of the human is not scalable.
Likewise, neither is cultural heritage. The city of New Orleans positions its self as a city with great cultural heritage. It is through this heritage that they seek to draw more and more tourists. How do cities think of scaling up successful initiatives and how do they navigate the political, social, ecological, or economic entanglements. At what point is downscaling necessary? Is culture scalable?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/13/new-orleans-airbnb-trem…

QUOTIDIAN ANTHROPOCENES: NEW ORLEANS

mwenda

I am currently a Ph.D. student interested in exploring the entanglements of scale, especially in the context of environmental sensing.  My primary research seeks to engage in discourse around the value of scalability that is presented as inherent in computation. While the term scale-up is almost synonymous with computation, sustainability; on the other hand, is known as a problem of scale. Take for example, the discourse on climate change where the actions required to combat climate change requires interventions at different scales. In this context, demanding changes at individual scales while no corresponding changes happen at larger scales would not yield much.

In looking at New Orleans, I came across a video on IoT cameras developed by Cisco, the networking giant. What struck me other than the apparent rise of surveillance capitalism was the narrative of one of the police officers highlighted in the video. The officer mentions that it is not feasible for the city to place police officers on every corner. In the context of scale, the police officer is implying that cameras are useful as they extend the police officer's ability to surveil the city. In other words, cameras and the networks help scale up the police officer, making it possible for them to cover a larger scale than before.

One of the police officers, in the video, also mentions that New Orleans is a tourist and hospitable town. Which brings up the question at any given period, what scale of visitors can New Orleans support without stretching the city's resources? Several other cities in the world have made efforts to limit visitors, in order not stretch city resources. The recent crisis at Mount Everest is an excellent example of what happens when resources are stretched to accommodate the increasing number of local visitors. How could something of this nature similarly impact New Orleans?

At the communication center where the video feed is analyzed, the IT manager provides reasons as to why they chose Cisco as their vendor. One of the reasons he gives was that the system is easily expandable, allowing the ability to scale out/up the network.

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Sara.Till

The article discusses why, despite overwhelming amounts of foreign aid money and five years, Haiti still mimcs a disaster zone. Thousands of Haitians still live in tents and temporary housing, cholera is still raging, and rebuilding projects have stalled. The article questions why Haiti is just barely staggering back to "normal" after being given such tremendous resources. It goes on to discuss how several factors curb Haitian progress, including political turmoil and economic discord. Generally, the consensus remains (internationally) that the Haitian government cannot be entrusted money to fix these issues and must be led through the process by outside agencies. Additionally, malpractices by UN peackeeping troops have only addded to the list of problems (aka reintroducing cholera) and soured relations between Haiti and the UN.

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Sara.Till

Emergency response itself is not discussed in this article; this report mostly focuses on nuances of emergency/aid worker experiences. Particularly, it centers on the sheer, inexplicable lack of information surrounding attacks, harm, obstructions, and threats experienced by health care workers.

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Sara.Till

The policy applies to New York state citizens, health care workers, EMS personnel, and leadership within health care centers. Additionally, the policy has parts that effect transportation agencies and their employees. In many ways, due to Ebola's nature and the nature of New York as a major metropolitan area, these policies will also have a global effect.

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Sara.Till

The article debriefs a ruling by Federal District Court Judge Deborah A. Batts on a class action lawsuit against the EPA. It details the claims made by the plantiffs' surrounding EPA officials' misconduct after 9/11. Specifically cited are Christie Whitman, who chaired the EPA  during the attacks, and several other EPA officials.

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Sara.Till

As mentioned previously, the program began as an elaboration on the clinical work down by Brown's Warren Alpert Medical School. The school and its associated teaching hospitals have been providing care for incarcerated populations in Rhode Island since the early 1990's. The Center is located in Miriam and serves inmate populations in Rhode Island's state prison, ACI (Adult Correctional Institution). It has been used to model similar fledgling projects in San Diego, Philadelphia, and Maryland.