Skip to content
1981
Conflict, Environmental Disaster and their Aftermath: Repairing Our Broken World through Art
  • ISSN: 1743-5234
  • E-ISSN: 2040-090X

Abstract

At the start of the author’s second year as an art educator in New Orleans public schools in August 2005, the city was devastated by the cataclysmic destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Almost twenty years later, new disasters have come and gone, adding more layers to a culture that has always held both deep pain and ardent joy, a place that is persistently haunted by not only environmental precarity but also years of racial, economic and educational injustice, yet remaining one of the most culturally dynamic and artistically active places in the United States. Drawing upon Jane Bennett’s framework of vital materiality, and Amelia Kraehe’s framework of arts equity within a methodology of research-creation as delineated by Natalie Loveless, Erin Manning and Sarah Truman, the author utilizes personal artefacts as catalysts for critically tracing what disaster reveals about inequity in art education. This inquiry invites other art educators to engage in critical reflection on what their own identity artefacts reveal and conceal about equity and justice within art education.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00187_1
2025-02-19
2025-06-24
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ahmed, Sarah (2006), Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Anderson, Nick (2010), ‘Education Secretary Duncan calls Hurricane Katrina good for New Orleans schools’, The Washington Post, 30 January, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012903259.html. Accessed 6 August 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Anzaldúa, Gloria E. (2015), Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bearden, Romare (1977), The Return of Odysseus (Homage to Pinturicchio and Benin), Chicago, IL: The Art Institute of Chicago.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bennett, Jane (2010), Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Best Maugard, Adolfo (1927), A Method for Creative Design, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bogost, Ian (2012), Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bullard, Robert D. and Wright, Beverly (eds) (2009), Race, Place, and Environmental Justice after Hurricane Katrina, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Buras, Kristen L. (2011), ‘Race, charter schools, and conscious capitalism: On the spatial politics of whiteness as property (and the unconscionable assault on Black New Orleans)’, Harvard Educational Review, 81:2, pp. 29633, https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.2.6l42343qqw360j03.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Buras, Kristen L. (2015), Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Buras, Kristen L., Randels, Jim, Salaam, Kalamu ya and Students at the Center (2010), Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance from New Orleans, New York: Teachers College Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Dixson, Adrienne D., Buras, Kristen L. and Jeffers, Elizabeth K. (2015), ‘The color of reform: Race, education reform, and charter schools in post-Katrina New Orleans’, Qualitative Inquiry, 21:3, pp. 28899, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414557826.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Duong Ba Wendel, Delia (2009), ‘Imageability and justice in contemporary New Orleans’, Journal of Urban Design, 14:3, pp. 34575, https://doi.org/10.1080/13574800903056804.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Ellsworth, Elizabeth and Kruse, Jamie (eds) (2013), Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life, New York: Punctum Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Fabricant, Michael and Fine, Michelle (2013), The Changing Politics of Education: Privatization and the Dispossessed Lives Left Behind, Boulder, CO: Arapahoe.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Fisher, C. Tabor (2006), ‘The position of the theorist in the Lower Ninth Ward’, Space and Culture, 9:1, pp. 6870, https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331205283737.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Flaherty, Jordan (2010), Floodlines: Community Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén A. (2009), The Best of the Best: Becoming Elite at an American Boarding School, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén A., Saifer, Adam, and Desai, Chandini (2013), ‘“Talent” and the misrecognition of social advantage in specialized arts education’, Roeper Review, 35:2, pp. 12435, https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2013.766964.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén and Parekh, Gillian (2017), ‘Market “choices” or structured pathways? How specialized arts education contributes to the reproduction of inequality’, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 25:41, pp. 127, https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.25.2716.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén, Kraehe, Amelia M. and Carpenter, II, B. Stephen (2018), ‘The arts as white property: An introduction to race, racism, and the arts in education’, in A. M. Kraehe, R. Gaztambide-Fernández and B. S. Carpenter, II (eds), The Palgrave Handbook on Race and the Arts in Education, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 131.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Gee, James (1990), Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses, New York: Falmer.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Hamilton, Virginia, Dillon, Leo and Dillon, Diane (1993), The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Harris, Douglas N. and Larsen, Matthew F. (2023), ‘Taken by storm: The effects of Hurricane Katrina on medium-term student outcomes in New Orleans’, Journal of Human Resources, 58:5, pp. 160843, https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.58.5.0819-10367R2.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Holland, Dorothy, Lachicotte, Jr, William S., Skinner, Debra and Cain, Carole (1998), Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Hood, Emily Jean and Kraehe, Amelia M. (2017), ‘Creative matter: New materialism in art education research, teaching, and learning’, Art Education, 70:2, pp. 3238, https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2017.1274196.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Hood, Emily Jean and Travis, Sarah (2023), ‘Critical reflective practice for art educators’, Art Education, 76:1, pp. 2831, https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2022.2131201.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. King, Joyce E. (2011), ‘Who dat say (we) “too depraved to be saved?”: Re-membering Katrina/Haiti (and beyond): Critical studyin’ for freedom’, Harvard Educational Review, 81:2, pp. 34370, https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.2.hg6440w13qt7m366.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Kraehe, Amelia M., Hood, Emily Jean, and Travis, Sarah (2015), ‘“I’m so offended!”: Curriculum flashpoints and critical arts education’, International Journal of Education & the Arts, 16:18, pp. 128, http://www.ijea.org/v16n18/. Accessed 6 August 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Kraehe, Amelia M., Acuff, Joni B. and Travis, Sarah (2016), ‘Equity, the arts, and urban education: A review’, The Urban Review, 48:2, pp. 22044, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0352-2.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Kraehe, Amelia M. (2017), ‘Arts equity: A praxis-oriented tale’, Studies in Art Education, 58:4, pp. 26778, https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2017.1368293.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Leander, Kevin M. (2002), ‘Locating Latanya: The situated production of identity artifacts in classroom interaction’, Research in the Teaching of English, 37:2, pp. 198250, https://doi.org/10.58680/rte20021770.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Lincove, Jane Arnold, Barrett, Nathan and Strunk, Katharine O. (2017), ‘Did the teachers dismissed after Hurricane Katrina return to public education?’, Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, 31 May, https://educationresearchalliancenola.org/publications/did-the-teachers-dismissed-after-hurricane-katrina-return-to-public-education. Accessed 6 August 2024.
  34. Loveless, Natalie (2019), How to Make Art at the End of the World: A Manifesto for Research-Creation, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Manning, Erin (2016), ‘Ten propositions for research-creation’, in N. Colin and S. Sachsenmaier (eds), Collaboration in Performance Practice: Premises, Workings and Failures, New York: Palgrave, pp. 13341.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Mckee, Yates (2006), ‘Architecture, New Orleans, and the specter of ecological justice’, Rethinking Marxism, 18:4, pp. 51823.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Mckee, Yates (2010), ‘Wake, vestige, survival: Sustainability and the politics of the trace in Allora and Calzadilla’s Land Mark’, October, 133, pp. 2048, https://doi.org/10.1162/OCTO_a_00002.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Pérez, Michelle Salazar and Cannella, Gaile S. (2010), ‘Disaster capitalism as neoliberal instrument for the construction of early childhood education/care policy: Charter schools in post-Katrina New Orleans’, in G. S. Cannella and L. D. Soto (eds), Childhoods: A Handbook, New York: Peter Lang, pp. 14556.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Stabler, Albert (2018), ‘Burning cotton: Art education and the unemptied dustbin of history’, International Journal of Education Through Art, 14:1, pp. 11729, https://doi.org/10.1386/eta.14.1.117_1.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa (2009), Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, New York: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Thompson, Nato (ed.) (2012), Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011, New York: Creative Time Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Travis, Sarah and Hood, Emily Jean (2016), ‘Troubling sociocultural narrative pedagogy: Implications for art educators’, Studies in Art Education, 57:4, pp. 31828, https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2016.1204523.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Travis, Sarah (2018), ‘Portraits of young artists: Artworlds, in/equity, and dis/identification in post-Katrina New Orleans’, Ph.D. dissertation, Denton, TX: University of North Texas.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Travis, Sarah, Kraehe, Amelia M., Hood, Emily J. and Lewis, Tyson E. (eds) (2018), Pedagogies in the Flesh: Case Studies on the Embodiment of Sociocultural Differences in Education, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Travis, Sarah (2019), ‘Whiteness, artist identities, and artworld spaces’, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 36:3, pp. 91109, https://doi.org/10.2458/jcrae.4812.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Travis, Sarah (2020), ‘Flashpoints of artist identity formation’, Art Education, 73:5, pp. 1625, https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2020.1781438.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Travis, Sarah (2021), ‘“Artists, we need you”: Artist identity, creative agency, and the urgency of action’, Studies in Art Education, 62:2, pp. 14261, https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2021.1896250.
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Travis, Sarah (2022), ‘Confessing critical frictions in the arts and education’, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 39:1, pp. 7690, https://doi.org/10.2458/jcrae.5384.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Travis, Sarah and Hood, Emily Jean (2023), ‘Writing letters by hand: Critical pedagogical inquiry through inner and outer worlds’, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, pp. 132, https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2023.2175080.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Travis, Sarah T. and Lewis, Tyson E. (2023), ‘A phenomenology of joyful experimentation in art education’, Studies in Art Education, 64:3, pp. 34458, https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2023.2220099.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Truman, Sarah E. (2022), Feminist Speculations and the Practice of Research-Creation: Writing Pedagogies and Intertextual Affects, Abingdon: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Truman, Sarah E. (2023), ‘Undisciplined: Research-creation and what it may offer (traditional) qualitative research methods’, Qualitative Inquiry, 29:1, pp. 95104, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800422109838.
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Walter Anderson Museum of Art (n.d.), ‘The Little Room’, Walter Anderson Museum of Art, https://www.walterandersonmuseum.org/littleroom. Accessed 6 August 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Weber, Lynn and Peek, Lori (eds) (2012), Displaced: Life in the Katrina Diaspora, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Weixler, Lindsay Ball, Barrett, Nathan and Harris, Douglas N. (2017), ‘Did the New Orleans school reforms increase segregation?’, Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, 4 April, https://educationresearchalliancenola.org/publications/did-the-new-orleans-school-reforms-increase-segregation. Accessed 6 August 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Wenger, Etienne (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00187_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00187_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test