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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! 

"Through close examination of concrete settings in which biosecurity interventions are being articulated, these chapters show that ways of understanding and intervening in contemporary threats to healt are still in formation: 'biosecurity' does not name stable or cleary define understanding and strategies, but rather a number of overlapping and rapidly changing problem areas."

"After considerable delay, we have recently seen the implementation of large-scale responses to these new infectious desiease threats that bring together governmental, multilater, and philanthropic organizations."

"...newly perceived threats to health... have placed greater pressure on public health departments and national security officials to develop an approach to disease events not easily managed thorugh the traditional paradigm of public health."

Scott Gabriel Knowles is the head of the Department of History at the University of Drexel College of Arts and Sciences. His work focuses on risk and disaster, with particular interest in modern cities, technology and public policy. He is a research fellow at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, and has been a member of the Fukishima Forum collaborative research community since its inception in 2011. His work on public policy in relation to disaster-preparedness is focused on his home city of Philidelphia, and has written extensively on how to better prepare the city and preserve its legacy.

Mission statement "The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights seeks to improve the health and human rights of criminal justice populations through education, research, and advocacy."

The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights wants to use research on at-risk populations, such as those in prisons, and develope strategies into sustainable laws. Because this vision spans both the healthcare and policy for prisoners the program hopes to be able to attain this goal more effectively than if it were not interdisciplinary. A large part of their platform is advocacy. They wish to inform policy makers, healthcare professionals and indsutry, and the public about prisoners' lives and needs.

The user can share their story through the sit aswell if they wish to.

The authors used their knowledge of the subject and an extensive amount of articles and publications they referenced in order to create a summary of the subject and where it is moving toward.

The author states that this work is based off of a few things, including multiple years of field work in Ukraine throughout 1990 to 2000.

Based upon her observations within research and medical facilities within Ukraine during these visits she defined patterns of issues affecting the population.

Using her knowledge and past experience as well she established these patterns and their effects in order to understand the situation in Ukraine.

She also interviewed russian scientists to understand their perspective on the issues as well.