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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! 

The educational program in Haiti organized by Handicap International aims to train citizens of Haiti for careers as rehabilitation technicians and orthopedic technicians. The program is designed to provide a recognized degree allowing graduates to work as technicians under the supervision of physical therapists and orthopedic doctors. 

The article has been referenced nearly two dozen times in various articles focusing on feminism, gender, and the intersection between politics and medicine.

The article mentioned a proposed framework for health threats of security created by the World Health Organization, I did some research on the organization in order to understand their approach to emergency response as outlined the their Health Emergencies Program.

Recent developments in life sciences and bioengineering were cited several times throughout the article as having the potential to be a health risk. I looked at the headline research being done in those areas to better understand how health risks may be changing.

The article mentioned an unsuccessful vaccination program meant to prevent a smallpox outbreak, I looked into the history of that as a way of considering the preventative aspects of disaster response.

The article highlights large gaps in existing research concerning violence against health care workers in environments were the political and cultural atmosphere affects security in complex and unstudied ways. The article argues that the lack of research is partly due to discrepancies between public opinion, government opinion, and academic review makes understanding the causes of violence and risks to health workers challenging. The article suggests that an effort on the part of aid organizations to make their data easily accessible along with greater funding and academic interest the motives behind violence against health workers could be better understood.

“the demands placed on an investigation have as much, or more, to do with defining the dominant investigator and quickly addressing the fears and anger of the press, government, and an outraged public than they do with discovering the definitive technical truths of a catastrophic event.” (Knowles 11)

“The Hague Street inquest featured many experts, none with the authority to effect real change. The result was a blanket of blame that covered everyone” (Knowles 19)

“With the exception of federal oversight, Iroqouis set the tone for investigations of modern disasters from the Baltimore Conflagration (1904) to the world Trade Center collapse.” (Knowles 24)

The article provides statistics of approved applications based on the medical reason for the application and the department the application was processed at based on location, to show how different acceptance rates are. The article also provides many stories of applications, invoking an emotional response that allows the reader to sympathize with the personal challenge that faces medical officers and government officials making the discussions that may dramatically affect the health and wellbeing of individuals.

This system would definitely be difficult to use directly in the field as it does require steady internet connection to allow for collaboration between users. Another likely problem would be collaboration between users who speak a different language, although the publishing aspect of the app, and adaptable software downloads allow for multiple languages. Integrating numerical data between users who’s primary languages differ creates technical challenges that could range from complete field incompatibility to something as simple as interpreting a comma as thousands rather than a decimal point.