By Kristina Lyons, University of California, Santa Cruz § The president of the communal action committee whom I call Doña Marta ushered me to a more secluded corner behind the schoolhouse. She spoke in a low tone about the worsening water quality of the river flowing behind us. Over the last four years, downstream communities in … More Commentary: Toxic Bodies, Part II
By Kali Rubaii, University of California, Santa Cruz § Portland Cement extracts the enduring time of rocks and mobilizes it to build quickly. Through heat, rock[1] is bound with metals and synthetic chemicals– calcium, silica, aluminum, fly ash, lime. Mixed with water, it becomes concrete and clings to fingers, shovels, jeans. It is rock, transformed into … More Concrete and Livability in Occupied Palestine
By Peter Taber, University of Arizona § Satellite imagery of a small section of the Block 31 road entering the Apaika platform area, taken in 2013. Imagery courtesy of Matt Finer (Amazon Conservation Association), Massimo De Marchi (DICEA, University of Padova), Francesco Ferrarese (DiSSGea, University of Padova) and Salvatore Eugenio Pappalardo (DAFNAE, University of Padova) … More An “Ecological Path” in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park: On the Reflexivity of Oil Infrastructure
By Stephanie McCallum, University of California, Santa Cruz § Recent scholarship in anthropology has addressed infrastructure not in its fully functioning capabilities, but as it falls apart (e.g. Chu 2014). In a similar vein, here I attend to rust as a manifestation of infrastructural deterioration. Based on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork (September 2013 – October 2014) … More On Rust
By Kirk Jalbert, Manager of Community Based Research & Engagement, FracTracker Alliance and Visiting Research Professor, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Drexel University § Energy extraction has become a topic of contentious debate due to the use of unconventional drilling practices known as hydraulic fracturing—often referred to as “fracking”—to retrieve oil and gas from shale bed formations. Along … More Tactics of Power and Empowerment in Knowledge-Making Infrastructures
By Monica Patrice Barra, The Graduate Center, City University of New York § Losing a football field an hour Losing land at an average rate of approximately a football field an hour, Louisiana is disintegrating into the sea. Since the 1930s, the state has lost over 2,000 square miles of its coast to the Gulf … More Natural Infrastructures: Sediment, Science, and the Future of Southeast Louisiana
By Zachary Caple, University of California, Santa Cruz § The Limpkin Lover of the trashiest shorelines, the limpkin is an ibis made plainer, browner. Flecked white collar and long proboscis, it makes a living along the dock-stamped littorals and dingy canals of Florida. I got my first good look at a limpkin in a phosphate … More The Limpkin: A Poem and Short Essay
