THROUGH MURKY WATERS: Katrina, Public Housing, and the Cartographies of Struggle

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This text maps the epistemological linkages between Black bodies and geographies vis-à-vis understandings of defilement and contagion. My cartographical exercise is fueled by meditations on how ideas of inhabitability interface with conceptions of humanness in dominant epistemological and ontological productions of geo-racial knowledge and power. I follow this phenomenological juncture with regards to the hegemonic projects of purification and governmentality. As a concomitant to these inquiries, I unveil the slippages and incongruities in such narratives, focusing on alternative cartographical formulations. These inquiries are situated in and around Katrina and post-Katrina New Orleans. I draw upon the terror and violence of the deluge as a lens into the hegemonic task of classifying/knowing filth and purging/sublimating it. Specifically, I interrogate proposals for the demolition and redevelopment of much of the city?s remaining public housing.

    Item Description
    Name(s)
    Date
    May 01, 2008
    Extent
    160 pages
    Language
    eng
    Genre
    Physical Form
    electronic
    Rights and Use
    In Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Permitted
    Digital Collection
    PID
    ir:124