Skip to main content

Search

(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.

pece_annotation_1473009337

Sara_Nesheiwat

The study addresses vulnerable populations by initially focusing on youths that were in the vicinity of the Fukushima disaster at the time of the event. These subjects are vulnerable due to their proximity to the nuclear disaster, but also due to their age and the fact that they are still developing, causing them to be at more risk. 

pece_annotation_1479081076

Sara_Nesheiwat

This was an excerpt from a book entitled "Medicine, rationality, and experience" by Byron J. Good. This book has been cited in 16 different papers and works. Many of the works it has been cited in include anthropology of the Middle East, global health, Nurse and lay community members and other topics associated with anthropology and cultural communication.

pece_annotation_1473575914

Sara_Nesheiwat
Annotation of

The American Red Cross is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, charitable organization. The American Red Cross isn't a federal agency, so they do not receive regular federal funding to carry out their services. They get their money from public voluntary contributions and from cost-recovery charges they have for their services, such as health and safety training courses they offer. There are times though that the federal government contracts with the American Red Cross and provides material and aid assistance to support the Red Cross at times.

pece_annotation_1480144596

Sara_Nesheiwat

This policy greatly helped sculpt emergency medicine and public health. By giving the right to the patient to have emergency medical treatment required without proof of insurance or payment, astronomically influenced the amount of patients being turned away and their possibilty of developing worse illnesses or dying. In a paper I read, a young doctor in the late 70s and early 80s remembers watching a woman in labor give birth in the doorway of the hospital and proceed to borht her child in the parking lot after being turned away for not having insurance. By requiring hospitals and doctors to see that all ED patients get care, no patient was at risk of dying or complicating their baby's health and birth due to a lack of insurance, ultimately increasing public health efforts. Not all hospitals turned away their patients, but enough did to make it a public health concern and get Congress involved. EMTALA changed emergency medicine protocols but also public health expectations and actions.

http://www.hhnmag.com/articles/5010-the-law-that-changed-everything-and…

pece_annotation_1474157491

Sara_Nesheiwat

-I looked up UN response efforts in Liberia during the time of this outbreak. Doing this, I was able to learn about the process that was taken in an attempt to decrease the transmission of the disease. I also learned about specific numbers in terms of confirmed cases as well as deaths. The UN was mentioned but not explicitly talked about in the film, so I wanted to further my understanding of the actions and role they played during this outbreak. 

http://ebolaresponse.un.org/liberia

-I wanted to research the general healthcare in Libera and see if there is a lack in healthcare in this area, which may have aided in the severe devastation caused by the outbreak. As mentioned, the civil war really effected many outcomes of the country, one of them being healthcare. Communicable diseases were a factor that was already a topic of concern in this area before the outbreak of Ebola. Currently healthcare in Libera is being reformed, yet after reading this report, it is easy to see why the government and public health workers struggled so much to contain this outbreak.

https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publi…

-I wanted to learn more about the Ebola virus in general but also learn more about the diagnosis and the symptoms that those infected would display. I also wanted to learn more about the progression of the virus after being infected as well as the incubation period. I researched the virus on the World Health Organization website. Here I was able to find all this information out from the virus' origin to the diagnoses process and symptoms.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/

pece_annotation_1480823587

Sara_Nesheiwat

This paper has been cited and discussed in 7 different articles according to Google Scholar. Many of the papers it has been cited in have to do with the effects of social media on opinions of opioid use, gun violence, vaccination rates and more. The papers all have to do with public perception and education on certain topics, very similar to this study.

pece_annotation_1474777041

Sara_Nesheiwat

Emergency response is addressed in terms of post disaster investigations rather than immediate on scene response. The political and social analysis of these city areas, as well as the social aspects of the disasters are analyzed. Discussing why the events occurred, how to prevent them, as well as the political aspects such as power and public factors are also discussed. Investigations mainly showed that more needed to be done in terms of preventatives and safety that could have possibly minimized the amount of disaster in some of the situations. 

pece_annotation_1475342487

Sara_Nesheiwat

This article discusses the French laws and their effect on immigration and healthcare. The laws around the retention of illegal immigrants in France to get treated for their illnesses are discussed. Policies are also discussed in comparison with America and other western nations. The law that is behind this was published in June 1997 by Jean-Pierre Chevenementthe. The public health aspects as well a immigrant rights are also discussed.