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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 program ideology and purpose is based off preparing students for career paths in "(a) communities that are affected by and vulnerable to disaster destruction and disruption; (b) organizations that focus on all phases of disaster management (preparedness, response, recovery, and risk reduction); and, (c) leadership in organizations and communities that require leadership that promotes resilience."

Students can earn a DRLS Master of Science in 2 years (or a 1 year accelerated) and is made up of 36 credits . Courses required to be taken are centered around leaderhsip analytics and environmental hazards. Students are trained and educated under the 5 core competencies or pillars- Human and social factors, Economics of disaster, Environmental and Infrastructure, disaster operations, measurement and evaluation. The goal is to produce competent practitioners in disaster relief, create partnerships within the academic community and provide leadership, research and evaluation abilities in their students. 

This policy was an expansion of the Social Security Act and other federal social welfare programs that date back to 1950. This policy was created to clear up confusions and set down parameters for how mental health should be addressed under this Act and to define what constitutes an IMD under this policy.

The argument of this paper is supported through the field research of the author and the findings based off that, as well as testimony and interviews from those effected by the disaster. The author also discusses Chernobyl in depth in terms of pre and post disaster, as well as its history and how there was a change in the area after the disaster. There are also statistical analyses and data provided and a detailed assessment of the internal mechanisms of the government and social aspects of the topic. 

The author is Sonja D. Schmid, who is a professor in STS at Virginia Tech. Her main topic of study and research focus is the Soviet Union and nuclear emergency response. She analyzes nuclear industry risks and policies in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. She researches the organizational history of nuclear industries including their policies and advances in technology. She's also a well published author on the topic.

The purpose of this program is to help instill into nurses, doctors, social workers and more with the ability to mix their clinical practice with the ability to interpret, recognize and be moved by stories of illness according to their mission statement. This program is for those that want to improve the effectiveness of their care by increasing their familiarity with the skill of narrative medicine. 

The authors include Paul E Farmer, Bruce Nizeye, Sara Stulac, Salmaan Keshavjee. Paul Farmer is a physician and anthropologist that is very active on this subject and has many different publications on the matter. Paul and the other authors are all involved with Partners in Health. All authors are doctors and very active in global health and efforts. Partners in Health focuses on developing healthcare in countries of need.  

I further researched narrative medicine and  to see how widely it is applied to medical fields today. I also researched the areas in the Middle East that were discussed int eh chapter and read about their customs and traditions to further my understanding of how it may influence their actions medically. I also read other parts of the book in order to gain more information on the topic in general. 

A recent article was published about the technologies that the American Red Cross relies on and offers. Red Cross offers a free mobile app that provides lifesaving information on anyones phone who wants and needs it. Many volunteers utilize this information to be able to respond on scene when necessary. Their national shelter system and home fire geographic information system also helps them map out the best escape routes and prevention methods utilizing technology as well as providing them with fast response alarm times. The American Red Cross also depends on other organizations as well as technologies to help transport people, volunteers, medicine, etc to areas in need. They also depend on other organizations for response orders and collaboration of technologies, resource, hospitals and knowledge.