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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! 

SNAP and WIC are two organizations helping low-income families.  30,000 Newark children are receiving SNAP benefits, and 12% of Newark residents are eligible for WIC.  SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and WIC is the Supplemental Nutrition Program Women, Infants, and Children.  Both organizations provide nutritious food to low-income families to prevent food insecurity.

This bar graph shows that blacks have the lowest median household income out of all races.  This means that they are at most risk of hazards, they are most affected by poverty, with Hispanics being the second most affected.

This study is published the Environmental Health Perspectives.  The journal helps explain the continuity between human health and the environment.  They publish topics like toxicology, epidemiology, exposure science, and risk assessment.  The publication is ranked highly among professionals and has a rating of 8.44. 

Food stamp (SNAP) rolls increased over the years, and the article addresses that this is a sign of poverty.  The USDA is an agency that administers food stamps.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) are two agencies that many low-income families are enrolled in.  WIC provides nutritious food for pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women, infants and children up to the age of five; it is specifically available for household up to 185 percent of the federal poverty lines.  SNAP provides low-income families with nutritious food.

This study determines if childhood blood lead levels correlate with educational achievement.  They studied this through standardized test scores.

The sources of resilience come when the economy improves.  This graph shows that the poverty rate had increased from 2008-2009 because of the recession the country went through.