Learning from Mega Disasters

International Workshop for Knowledge Learning and Sharing from Mega Disasters

World Bank, Tokyo, Japan

17-18 January, 2012

 

Dr. Mimi Sheller, Drexel Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, joined a team of international experts invited by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to provide advice to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 for developing countries. The team of 12 experts from the USA, Canada, China, India, Turkey and the UK convened at the World Bank Headquarters in Tokyo on January 17th-18th, 2012, to meet with senior development and risk managements specialists from the World Bank Institute, high level government representatives from several Ministries of the Government of Japan, and Japanese academics and NGO’s.

A second meeting will take place in May. The final report will be presented at the IMF/World Bank annual meeting, which will take place in Sendai, Japan in October 2012, conveying the findings to all of their member states. Topics covered in the meeting included structural and non-structural (social) risk reduction measures, emergency response and preparedness, the recovery process and reconstruction planning, improving hazard and risk information and decision making, and the economics of disaster risk management and financing.

Dr. Mimi Sheller

 

T2M 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS
T2M Conference – Madrid, 2012

The International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M) announces the call for papers to be presented at its tenth annual conference, which will take place at the Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid (Madrid Railway Museum) on 15-18 November 2012.

Delicias station, Madrid Railway Museum

Physical mobility in societies and the economic growth of societies have been linked to the availability of means of transport and to their combination and coordination, particularly as a result of modernization and urbanization processes.The future of public transport in the last 100 years depended on good and easy intermodal mobility. While walking and driving may have allowed monomodal point-to- point travel, public transport by definition includes a transition between transport modes. Thus, transport planning in favour of public transport systems did face public expectation to provide intelligent intermobilites in order to support public transport modes.

The Madrid Conference seeks to analyse the processes of interconnection and integration among the different modes of transport from a historical perspective, and will therefore deal with the various aspects that converge therein: economic, social, institutional, political, technological, territorial and patrimonial. Consequently, the suggested research topics related to the concept of intermodality are the following:

• International and transnational intermodality and its technical, economic and political-administrative aspects.
• Intermodality and migratory processes.
• Intermodality in metropolitan cities and its effects on urban development and on transport demands and everyday travel habits.
• The planning of intermodal complexes throughout history: projects, successes and failures.
• Spaces for modal interchange: stations, airports, sea and river ports.
• Technological consequences for modal interchange in the sea and river transport sphere: from stowage to container traffic.
• Intermodality in the air traffic sphere. The airport within reach of the city and major intermodal hubs: from metropolitan connections to the emergence of highspeed lines.
• Light intermodality in large cities: the different ways in which users access the transport system (walking, cycling and driving to major intermodal hubs).
• Intermodality and environment.

Papers must be sent to: submissions@t2m.org. The deadline for sending abstracts and an abbreviated CV (maximum of one page per paper: Word or Rich Text Format only) will be May 15, 2012. Further information can be found at www.t2m.org

 

Haiti Two Years After the Earthquake

Knowledge Sharing from Mega Disasters

Drexel Professor of Sociology and mCenter Director Mimi Sheller will be joining a small team of international experts who have been invited by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to provide advice to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami for developing countries. In that capacity Sheller will be going to Tokyo from January 14^th-19^th, 2012, along with 10 experts from the USA, Canada, China, India, Turkey and the UK to meet with Japanese researchers and government representatives. A second meeting including  experts from Turkey, Peru and Iran will take place later in the year. The team will be writing Knowledge Notes for the World Bank, conveying lessons on disaster response and recovery that will guide and influence its actions in countries like Haiti. For the first publication in this series see the GFDRR’s Earthquake Reconstruction Knowledge Notes.

Haiti Two Years Later

It is now two years since the terrible earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12^th, 2010. Despite the promises of “building back better”, little reconstruction has taken place there. At least half a million people are still living in minimal shelters in what were meant to be temporary camps. Little of the promised reconstruction money has actually been spent. For some important updates on the situation, see some of the following sites:

Two Years Later, Where Is The Outrage? By Melinda Miles, Let Haiti Live Founder and Director, Lethaitilive.org

Haiti After the Quake: Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go by BILL QUIGLEY and AMBER RAMANAUSKAS

Our Drexel research team has been writing up and publishing findings, and is planning a return trip to Haiti in the summer of 2012 to distribute a final report on the project, disseminate recommendations, and determine future plans of action in collaboration with Haitian partners. Following up on NSF Haiti-RAPID Award #1032184 ‘Supporting Haitian Infrastructure Reconstruction with Local Knowledge’, with PI Franco Montalto and Co-PIs Patrick Gurian, Michael Piasecki, and Mimi Sheller, we have submitted the following articles:

HC Galada, PL Gurian, FA Montalto, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Restructuring in the Midst of Disaster: Post-Earthquake Water and Sanitation Management and Payment Options for Leogane, Haiti, submitted to Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.

M Sheller, S O’Connor, HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Piasecki: Participatory Engineering for Recovery in Post-Earthquake Haiti, submitted to Engineering Studies, Special Issue on Engineering Risk and Disaster, eds. SG Knowles and G Downey.

HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Transitions to Sustainable Sanitation Infrastructure in post-earthquake Leogane, Haiti: Including Stakeholder Preferences, Haiti, submitted to Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2013, Special Issue: Geographies of Water.

Further Publications

In related developments, mCenter Director Mimi Sheller has had the following article accepted for publication: M Sheller, The Islanding Effect: Post-Disaster Mobility Systems and Humanitarian Logistics in Haiti, accepted for Cultural Geographies, special issue on Islanding Geographies, eds. Eric Clark and Godfrey Baldaccino.

If you would like continuing news on our project, please join our 347 Twitter followers @HaitiWater where we continue to post news relating to water, sanitation, and overall reconstruction efforts in Haiti.

Also see the Special Issue of Earthquake Spectra on the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, published by EERI.

We also strongly recommend the new book: Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake (Kumarian Press, 2012) Edited by Mark Schuller ,  Pablo Morales

L.A Re.Play

L.A Re.Play – A Mobile Art Exhibition

Co-Curators: Hana Iverson, Mimi Sheller, Jeremy Hight

Utilizing the thriving, diverse, artistically vibrant and architecturally unique city as a living medium, the exhibition L.A Re.Play will showcase emergent forms of mobile media art that turn the city of Los Angeles into an exhibition space, a game space and a performance space. Presented as a location-based mobile public art exhibition in February 2012, it will accompany the double session presentation on Mobile Art: The Aesthetics of Mobile Network Culture in Placemaking, co-organized by Iverson and Sheller for the College Arts Association 2012 conference. Playing upon the dynamic relations between physical place, digital space, and mobile access via smartphone, the mobile artworks in the exhibit (along with the conference panels) will highlight the embodied performance of hybrid place and the social and collective politics of networked space.

Events

Feb. 22 – 29, 2012 L.A Re.Play Exhibition

Installations: Grad Art Gallery, Broad Art Center, UCLA

Tuesday, February 21

Pre-Conference Workshop: Mechanics of Place, a Mobile Augmented Reality participatory project by Hana Iverson and Sarah Drury. Held at CalArts.

Wednesday, February 22, 2:30 – 5:00 pm

CAA Panel 1: The Aesthetics of Mobile Network Culture in Place Making, Part I Chairs: Hana Iverson, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; Mimi Sheller, Drexel University (Concourse Meeting Room 403A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center)

In a Network of Lines that Intersect: Placing Mobile Interaction

Teri Rueb, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Situated Mobile Audio

Siobhan O’Flynn, Canadian Film Centre Media Lab

Sounding Cartographies and Navigation Art: In Search of the Sublime

Ksenia Fedorova, University of California, Davis

Indeterminate Hikes

Leila Nadir, Wellesley College

“En Route” and “Past City Future”: Making Places, Here and There, Now and When

Ian Woodcock, University of Melbourne

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 5:30 – 7:30 pm L.A Re.Play opening reception at CAA Convention Center L.A Re.Play Hub Location

Thursday, Feb. 23 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Off-conference Roundtable:  The City / Space and Creative Measure moderated by Jeremy Hight at ArtCenter South Campus

Panelists TBA

Friday, Feb. 24, 6:00 – 8:00

Reception: DESMA Grad Art Gallery, Broad Art Center, UCLA

Saturday, Feb. 25 9:30 AM–12:00 PM

CAA Panel: Mobile Art: The Aesthetics of Mobile Network Culture in Place Making, Part II,  Chairs: Hana Iverson, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; Mimi Sheller, Drexel University (Concourse Meeting Room 406A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center CAA)

I-5_Passing/52 Food Marts Project

Christiane Robbins, Jetztzeit

Narration in Hybrid Mobile Environments

Martha Ladly, Ontario College of Art and Design

Silver (Gateways): Being Here and Everywhere Now

Jenny Marketou, independent artist

Mechanics of Place: Textures of Tophane

Sarah Drury, Temple University

ManifestAR: An Augmented Reality Manifesto

John Craig Freeman, Emerson College

Feb. 29 show closes

Event Locations

CAA Conference Center and Exhibition Hub: Los Angeles Convention Center

1201 S Figueroa St Los Angeles, CA 90015

Exhibition: Grad Art Gallery, DESMA, UCLA

Broad Art Center, 240 Charles E. Young Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Art Center South Campus

950 South Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105

CalArts (pre-conference workshop)

24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia, CA 91355

Katz Center for Judaic Studies

Intersections: Jews and Travel

Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
University of Pennsylvania

14 December 2011

United Congregation of Israelites Synagogue, Duke Street, Kingston, Jamaica. Photographer: Doris Jones. Date Unknown

Professor Mimi Sheller, mCenter Director, will be speaking at the one day workshop “Intersections: Jews and Travel” at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania. She will be presenting a talk entitled “A Radical Jew in Jamaica: Indentured labor, diasporic empathy, and the literature of emancipation in the 1860’s”. Inspired by the discovery of an 1865 photograph of Sidney Levien, a radical newspaper editor who defended the rights of the “laboring classes” of emancipated African Jamaicans and indentured Indian Jamaicans, the paper explores themes of cross-cultural and multi-racial diaspora consciousness and cosmopolitanism.

This day-long workshop to be held at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studie is for fellows, Penn faculty, and invited guests only. Registration required. More information can be found here.

Mobility and New Media

New Course for Winter 2011-2012!

SOC380-003 Mobility and New Media

Smart Cities - www.designforall.org

Course Description:

New forms of mobile communication, locative media, and “smart” infrastructure are changing the way we connect to other people, to information, and to places while on the move. Through mobile information and communications technologies (ICTs) more and more people are carrying portable digital devices with them, while the “material” infrastructures of transport, architecture, and borders are increasingly embedded with “virtual” data including embedded responsive software, GPS, RFID, sensors, satellite connectivity, and other forms of automated data transfer and interactivity. How are these mobile technologies transforming the distinction between private and public spaces, re-shaping urbanism and movement, and generating new forms of life on the move?

This course will introduce the emerging field of mobilities research as a new way to look at both the large-scale movements of people, objects, and information across the world, and the more local processes of daily transportation and movement through urban public space. We will draw on interdisciplinary approaches including sociology, cultural geography, communication and media studies; and methodologies including ethnography, discourse analysis, visual studies, and various new “mobile methods”.

Class Time:   T/Th 5-6:20pm                                               

Classroom:    PSA 114

Instructor:

Professor Mimi Sheller                                                                     

Office: Macalister 5011

Email: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu                                              

Tel: (215) 571-3652               

Digital@Drexel

Presentation and Showcase

Friday, November 18th

9:30am to 12:30 pm

W.W. Hagerty Library

9:30 AM – 10:30 AM – Digital Landscape and Content Strategy in Higher Education

A presentation by William Ying, Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Technology for ARTstor. Mr. Ying received his Doctorate of Engineering Science and Masters of Science from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Computer Science from Cornell University.

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM – Digital@Drexel Showcase

Showcasing digital projects from Drexel University faculty, students and staff including:

•  Digital Cultural Heritage – Dr. Glen Muschio, Associate Professor, Westphal
• Augmented Avenue: Memories of Lancaster Avenue - Dr. Mimi Sheller, director of the mCenter at Drexel
• Digital@iSchool – Dr. Xia Lin, Professor, iSchool at Drexel
• Seeking Women’s History – The Legacy Center, Drexel University College of Medicine
• Leveraging Google Spreadsheets with Google Apps Scripts for Manipulating Chemical Information and other Bibliometric Tasks – Dr. Jean-Claude Bradley, Associate Professor, Chemistry
• Photographs of the Tidewater Granary Explosion – Drexel University Archives
• Interactive Technologies @ Drexel for Research, Learning, and Entertainment – Dr. Youngmoo Kim, Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean of Media Technologies
• Drexel Smart House

For more information about Digital@Drexel, please visit our website.
Questions and RSVPs should be directed to Jenny James Lee at jaj92@drexel.edu or 215-571-4095.

Digital@Drexel is an informal group of individual Drexel research and teaching faculty, librarians, and archivists, who create, manage, and/or provide support for the unique digital content produced in research and class projects. The group has a diverse membership that works together to identify digital research and preservation needs, problems, opportunities and advances.

Digital@Drexel began in summer 2011 after faculty members and Drexel University Libraries identified a need to support the evolving digital culture and for managing the digital assets produced by the Drexel community.

If you are interested in joining Digital@Drexel, please email Tainesha Ware or call 215-865-2750 to be added to upcoming meeting invitations.

Caribbean Studies Association

Unpacking Caribbean Citizenship: Rights, Participation and Belonging

Call for Papers
Caribbean Studies Association
37th Annual Conference
May 28-June 3, 2012
Le Gosier, Guadeloupe

Jean Jacques Dessalines

The Caribbean Studies Association issues a call for papers for its 37th Annual Conference with the theme “Unpacking Caribbean Citizenship: Rights, Participation and Belonging. ” We invite scholars, practitioners in the humanities, social sciences, public policy and members of civil society organizations whose works focus on the wider Caribbean and its diasporas to submit abstracts of approximately 250 words or less for research papers and presentations. We also welcome graduate student submissions and multi-lingual panels.

While we expect individual paper submissions, we especially encourage participants to submit proposals for complete panels (four presenters), roundtable discussions that engage with the conference’s timely theme. Unrelated topics will also be considered. More information on the conference’s theme can be found on the CSA website, (http://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org). Submissions must be made electronically via the CSA website. Deadline for submissions is December 30, 2011.

With respect to the film/art/performance track: Next year, a very limited number of films that pertain to the conference theme as well as the Francophone Caribbean will be selected for presentation during the conference. This new direction is designed to both streamline and better integrate the film/art/performance track within the conference. Please see the CSA website for submission information. A visual art and performance component will be curated by a committee consisting of members of the Executive Council and CSA members.

CSA is able to offer a limited number of travel grants to assist selected participants. A call for applications for the travel grant will be issued on the CSA website as well as in the CSA fall newsletter scheduled for December.

For information concerning the program only, contact:
Dr. Gina Athena Ulysse, Program Chair, csa2012@wesleyan.edu

For information pertaining to registration and membership, please contact:
Mrs. Joy Cooblal, Secretary-Treasurer,  Joy.Cooblal-CSA@sta.uwi.edu

For questions on the travel grants, please contact:
Dr Samuel Furé Davis, Grant Committee Chair,  sfuredavis@flex.uh.cu

Urban Sustainability Forum

Public Transportation Urban Sustainability Forum

Thursday, October 20 · 6:00pm – 8:30pm

 

The Academy of Natural Sciences 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia, PA 19103

Join the Urban Sustainability Forum as we analyze the ways in which Philadelphia’s public transportation system helps preserve the city’s environmental health. Speakers representing the New York City’s MTA, SEPTA, the Philadelphia City Council, and private business will discuss how innovation is making public transportation even more sustainable. Speakers will provide perspective by comparing New York City and Philadelphia mass-transit practices.

 

6:00: Reception – information tables: DVARP, Clean Air Council, PennPIRG, DVRPC, Drexel University Center for Mobilities Research & Policy

6:30: Program Featuring:

• Ernest Tollerson, Director, Environmental Sustainability and Compliance, New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority

• Councilman Curtis Jones, Chair, Transportation and Public Utilities Committee, Philadelphia City Council

• Chad Von Eck, Sr. Project Manager, Viridity Energy, Inc.

• Byron Comati, Director of Strategic Planning and Analysis, SEPTA

Register: http://transitphilly.eventbrite.com/

Augmented Avenue

Memories of Lancaster

Sponsored by the mCenter @ Drexel

Augmented Avenue: Memories of Lancaster is a collaborative art project for creative urban engagement that offers visitors a new way to experience the Lancaster Avenue neighborhood. Drexel University students worked in partnership with members of the community who narrated their stories and memories, together co-authoring a dynamic portrait of local history.  Each student interpreted that experience and co-created a photo and sound collage available through the smartphone, and on display at 3820 Lancaster Avenue from September 30^th to October 29^th, 2011 as part of the LOOK! On Lancaster Avenue Arts Project sponsored by the City of Philadelphia’s ReStore Corridors Through Art program. It can also be veiwed at http://lancasterave.tumblr.com.

 

Joe McNulty (University City District) and James Wright (People’s Emergency Center, PEC) with the students from Drexel's COM380 Neighborhood Narratives class

Led by Hana Iverson, the director of the Neighborhood Narratives project, this was a communications class project sponsored by Drexel University’s Center for Mobilities Research and Policy (mCenter).  Iverson is a media artist whose projects span intermedia platforms and contexts, incorporating mobile narrative, augmented reality, and interactive installation. The students include: Alan Masse, Andrew Leiser, Aviva Linksman, Caitlin Bookman, Elizabeth Miller, Francesca Martelli, John Chagaris, Kerry Handschuh, Lily Strater and Melissa Reilly.

 

“I was very lucky to work with George Stevens on this project.  George grew up in this community and lives here now.  His pride, dedication, and responsibility to the community have given me a new found appreciation for Powelton.  Before working with George, I knew very little about the culture and history of the area in which I live, but now I too feel a sense of pride for my neighborhood.  Though I did not grow up here, I do consider this ‘home’ and my experience in working with Augmented Avenue has been incredibly enriching.”

– Lizz Miller, a junior studying communication

Lucy Kerman, Drexel’s Vice Provost for University and Community Relations, introduced the class to some key partners. Central to the experience were George Stevens, who organized all the neigborhood participants, Joe McNulty (University City District) and James Wright (People’s Emergency Center, PEC) who very generously came to the class, shared their expertise about the neighborhood and took the students for a detailed walking tour of Lancaster Avenue.

 

“The Augmented Avenue project took me out of my comfort zone and opened my eyes to a part of Philadelphia that I hadn’t previously gotten the opportunity to experience. As someone who typically stays within the confines of Drexel University and Center City Philadelphia, venturing into Lancaster Avenue was a stretch for me. However … I came out of the experience with an array of knowledge about the history of Lancaster Avenue, an idea of how the area operates in present day and valuable information about augmented reality and combining actual places and media experiences into one. Because of this project, I am no longer hesitant to venture past Drexel’s lines and into West Philadelphia.”

– Caitlin Bookman, a 5^th year Senior studying Communications, with a concentration in Public Relations

 

This project teamed up with Zooburst, a digital storytelling tool, as a simple way to create custom augmented reality experiences that can be viewed on a mobile device, such as an Android or iPhone. ZooBurst was created by Craig Kapp and is available at http://www.zooburst.com/. Craig Kapp is an interactive developer who has spent over ten years working to find ways to bring cutting edge digital technologies into educational settings. He helped the class realize their vision.

 

“Augmented Avenue has peaked my interest in local history. My initial impressions of the project were that of excitement and curiosity. I had heard the tech scene buzzword ‘Augmented Reality’ and was interested in it’s capability to change the way we educate ourselves and view our surroundings. Yet I had not considered it’s implications within the art world, nor fully realized the extent of our project. I enjoy viewing and creating art that has purpose. I feel that through the use of new technology we can share purposeful, deliberate creative experience in an exciting new medium.”

– Lily Strater, a graduating senior studying communication theory, public relations and psychology.