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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 methodology of the study is fairly standard. It uses basic reasoning, supported with conclusive data to make its point on the true and falsehoods of communicable diseases associated with natural disasters.

Those that cannot pay for healthcare services (or are suspected to not be able to) are the most vulnerable population as they can literally die because of their social standing getting in the way of care and treatment. 

The argument is sustained by some big number facts but mostly through interviews with people on the ground and involved in the community of central Liberia.

                Very little scientific information is provided by the film. The main goal of the film is to highlight the social aspects of the disease.

                The film appeals emotionally, starting with following the personal story of the Urey family that becomes divided between the US and Liberia. Throughout the film, there is much appeal to the viewer’s emotion when presenting the difficulties and challenges in this case, such as law enforcement shooting the legs of a boy during civil unrest.

 I researched more into why the fire department’s Radios were having difficulties and issues, especially on the higher floors. First, the agency primarily used VHF (very high frequency) radios which are better for long distance when there is line-of-sight form point-to-point with minimal obstructions. UHF operates on a higher frequency and thus transmits with shorter wave-lengths which is better for object penetration. There are many challenges with radio communications in a city like NYC, starting with the sheer fact that to transmit directly from the ground to the top requires going through over a hundred stories of steel and concrete.

The repeaters worked to an extent. We know that they were operational and working, at least partly, as they recorded the relayed transmissions. The police used a separate but almost identical repeater as the fire department with mostly success. The NYFD experienced more issues. I found reports that claimed from fire fighters in the towers that while the transmissions were getting through, they were not understood due to the loud working environment and congested radio traffic.

The Incident Command System was largely ineffective. The only agency that was properly trained in ICS was the fire department which made inter-agency command and control through ICS moot. It was because of the events on 9/11/2001 that resulted in the development of the Nation Incident Management System, by the Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses ICS and more. Federal funding for emergencies now requires that NIMS be used as well as all first responders that respond to hazardous materials incidents be trained in the ICS.

Didier Fassin—

“Didier Fassin is an anthropologist and a sociologist who has conducted fieldwork in Senegal, Ecuador, South Africa, and France. Trained as a physician in internal medicine and public health, he dedicated his early research to medical anthropology, illuminating important dimensions of the AIDS epidemic, mortality disparities, and global health. He later developed the field of critical moral anthropology, which explores the historical, social, and political signification of moral forms involved in everyday judgment and action as well as in the making of international relations with humanitarianism. He recently conducted an ethnography of the state, through a study of urban policing as well as the justice and prison systems in France. His current work is on punishment, asylum, inequality, and the politics of life, and he is developing a reflection on the public presence of the social sciences. He occasionally writes for the French newspapers Le Monde and Libération. His recent books include The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry Into the Condition of Victimhood (2009), Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present (2011), Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing (2013), At the Heart of the State: The Moral World of Institutions (2015), and Prison Worlds: An Ethnography of the Carceral Condition (2016).” (https://www.ias.edu/scholars/fassin)

“Based upon research that the DRLA leadership has conducted with reputational leaders in the field, including leaders from within other premier academic institutions, international organizations, prestigious NGOs, the United Nations, the donor community, think tanks and the Red Cross movement, it is widely agreed that a systematic and interdisciplinary approach to leadership is widely needed in the community and insufficiently addressed in most academic programs. As Tulane University itself has exhibited such resilience and strength of leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it represents and ideal setting to support such an approach to disaster resilience leadership education and allows students to experience the living laboratory of recovery and resilience that is the city of New Orleans.” -- Louisiana Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters.

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