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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 not addressed in terms of the immediate response. The article focuses instead on the aftermath of the incident on Sept. 11th, dealing primarily with the cleanup efforts and investigation that followed in an effort to provide closure to the public and resume the regular business of the city, both important steps in recovering from a disaster.

The article has not been referenced extensively, as it is focused on a very specific topic. However the ideas presented in the article, and by extension the ideas presented in the book have been included in other papers including some of the author's later works.

The article focuses on the lasting effects of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent years of rebuilding that never fully repaired the communities and lives destroyed. The authors attribute a lasting sense of displacement to the treatment of survivors directly after the destruction of New Orleans, and the subsequent failures of the government to effectively support displaced survivors.

The organization does have extensive data collected from its members on the number of veterans, what kinds of injuries they are facing, and the level of success in rehabilitation among other topics.

The study aimed to discover new or more effective methods of studying long term effects of exposure to toxic agents. It describes the new insights including the effectiveness of simple studies, ensuring control groups, and methods to do research by using ecological aspects or involving the community in places where medical researchers are not entirely trusted.

This report is comprised of several parts, beginning with an introduction. The report describes radiation exposure and effects that have been linked to the Fukushima disaster. Then it outlines future goals of increased awareness of the risks of nuclear disasters and the effects of radiation exposure as well as the need for a network of experts capable of sharing knowledge and expertise when needed. Finally the report mentions further studies being completed concerning the effect of radiation on children.

The film shows the challenging decisions that have to be made by doctors, patients, and family members. Although in the end the decision to continue fighting a terminal illness rests with the patient, their doctors have the enormous responsibility of providing honest medical opinions in a way that allows patients to understand their illness and make educated decisions. The film showed how challenging that is for doctors when their instincts are to keep fighting until the end, to give their patients hope even when a treatment has a slim chance of working and could make the patient sicker.