In the low ground: Physical and racial geographies in New Orleans
Quizzes are coming up on readings and course content and lecture content. We can go in, take the quiz, and then step away.
Vincent is an instructor for a decal we should take.
Let's talk about the historical geography of new orleans, 1865 up till 1945 and then 1945 to the present.
look at the levees only approach to water management.
think about ways in which nature and culture are separated in a racial and cultural sense in southern louisiana
Donald Worster: the dynamic interaction of nature society and culture and think about katrina as a human disaster. think of nature and society as buckets in which we can understand different dimensions of society in the face of disaster.
donald worster is an extremely vast way to start to make sense of complexity. various elements or categories going on and how they relate to one another. this framework has limitations that are not immediately obvious. How does something like law or policy fit in here? how does infrastructure fit in here? maybe it's a cultural thing, maybe it transforms natural landscapes and also becomes part of the natural aspect too as it becomes part of the environment
This environmental history framework, offers
Worster's environmental history framework
Nature: the non human world
- we might want to think about it as something of a bridge on how humanity will work together on orienting around the development of natural resources for humans in ways nature has been understood in how things can be used for humans. Indigenous societies also think about all of this too, but if nature is fundamentally understood as a collection of resources or commodities, then you take a particular history of western european vision of history, as well. It's not like indigenous people see nature as a thing that humans can benefit from as well, but this primary focus on natural resources is a mindset from european 18th and 19th centuries.
Society: Social Institutions, economy, infrastructure
- Worster uses the term "mode of production" associated with Marxist political economy. It comes from more classical liberal economics, Adam smith used it as a means of producing subsistence. Primarily Marxist Definition: a mode of production is the forms and forces of production, and associated social relations. We can think then of this as an anthropological approach, a concept of MOP in the way societies adopt adaptive strategies for achieving the perceived limits and opportunities in any given place (could be nature). The way they engage in that place to exploit the opportunities and explore the limits of that place.
- there are other ways to describe human social organization in terms of modes of productions. there are many subtleties, in the way this plays out. Typically, hunter gatherer societies are gender based divisions of labor. This is very typical. In capitalism, it's more of a class based division on labor. we also want to think about chronologies, and how they are associated with different modes for productions, different technologies, etc.
culture: learned systems of meaning that shape social organization, perception, behaviour and identity
- culture is a category which is really complicated. it's a way we make sense of the world, shared beliefs and behaviours of a society, the realm of ideas and the way they get expressed. etc.
- what we have learned in terms of technologies. There isn't everything we need to do here when it comes to.
Dialectical interaction: interplay of nature, culture and society over time
- In a very simple way, it's a dynamic interaction, where nature sets limits on its opportunities for humans. Southeastern Louisiana is a wetland, and while there's opportunities, there are limits on what humans could (or should) do there. There are culturally defined perspectives on nature, there we have what would be described as a symbolic or cultural way on which people interact with limits and opportunities. We can have people attempt to overcome those limits and say "we can make a city in the middle of the wetlands, next to a flood prone river"
- If you merge from that dynamic of nature and culture that drive changes in nature, that drive changes in culture and landscape. maybe then there are things that can change nature. Round after round of infrastructure development.
we can learn more about how european american have pushed the limits on what is southeastern louisiana, and understand what the thought process was.
Cultural and social adaptation to perceived limits & opportunities in nature.
Instrumental:
- active subject > Passive Subject
- Nature as object of manipulation, control & domination
Intersubjective
- active subject <> active subject
- restraint, flexibility and adaptation to limits