Week 11 Reflection

The article we read for Tuesday titled, “Refining Memory: Sugar, Oil, and Plantation Tourism on Louisiana’s River Road especially stood out to me among the readings for this week. In the article, author Jessica Rapson discusses the whitewashing of plantations and the land where plantations once stood. As the article explains, there are several plantations along River Road that have turned into tourist destinations and party venues, while others have become sugar and oil refineries. Rapson compares the refining of sugar and oil to the refining of memory, as is done when people begin to see plantations as anything other than the horrible atrocities that happened at them in the past.

Having grown up in New Orleans, I remember taking school field trips to plantations as early as kindergarten. At the time, I certainly was not old enough to understand what had once happened in the very place where I was standing. I also know that it is not uncommon for people to have weddings or parties at plantations because of their picturesque nature, which has always really bothered me. I think Rapson did a really good job of trying to sift through some of this in her article, especially for readers who may not be as familiar with the content as I am.

Some keywords from this week include necropolitics, petrochemicals, and biopolitics. Necropolitics can be explained as, “the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how some must die” (Wikipedia). Petrochemicals are “ chemical products derived from petroleum” (Wikipedia).  Biopolitics, “ examine[s] the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed under regimes of authority over knowledge, power, and the processes of subjectivation” (Wikipedia).