Over a decade has passed since Hurricane Katrina impacted the Gulf Coast. The city of New Orleans, was one of the more severely damaged areas in the region, experiencing 80% damage. This dissertation analyzes the rebuilding of New Orleans and it questions the role that colonial legacies play in that process. It asks: If post colonialism postulates that colonialism is still an occurrence, then what role does the continuation of colonialism play in Post-Katrina New Orleans? How does it attempt to orient us in time/space? And how can we terminate its influence? I argue that settler colonialism guides the rebuilding process by controlling the time, the space, and the people. Yet, this influence is cloaked behind a liberal veil; it is hidden beneath, what John D. Márquez calls, a discursive veneer. In the wake of natural and social disaster, coloniality uses the rhetoric of modernity to operate under the guise of neoliberalism, progress, and development. This liberal facade is the reason why reform solutions won’t work; they will only reify the system by not upending it’s deeply rooted colonial foundation. I argue, that instead of seeking surface-level repair, we terminate the influence of settler colonialism by enacting decolonization and decolonial imperatives. We reorient ourselves by enacting literal and temporal sovereignty, and by healing through a relationship of reciprocity with the environment.

Creator

• Shepard, Cassandra MIchelle Winand

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-ngqf-0h55

Subject

• African American studies
• Native American studies
• Ethnic studies

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14714
• etdadmin_upload_668656

Keyword

• Disaster
• Anthropocene
• Settler Colonialism
• Time Space
• Decolonialization
• Hurricane Katrina

Date created

• 2019-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright