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Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm Elliot, a sessional lecturer from Melbourne in Australia, recording on the lands of the Bun Wurrung people whose sovereignty was never seated. And I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Cassandra shepherd to the show. Cassandra is an assistant professor in the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana. Welcome, Cassandra.
C
Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate being here with you today.
B
And today we're very privileged to have Cassandra on the air to hear about her most recent book. Settler Colonialism is the A Critique of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and during the COVID 19 pandemic. Published with the University of Illinois Press, this encompassing and engrossing book focuses on the crises that have engulfed New Orleans, including disasters of colonialism, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and COVID 19, taking the reader through their causes and impacts on not only a broad level, but through the everyday and often traumatic experiences of the residents of New Orleans. The analysis moves from the Lower ninth Ward in New Orleans to state level, post disaster reconstruction contracts, to international forms of colonialism and even encompasses Beyonce. This book, which also includes poetry and a recommended playlist, is also very relevant to the current global moment. And now let's get more into Setter Colonialism is a design master with Cassandra. So Cassandra, your book tackles three so called post moments, post Katrina, post Covid and post colonialism. Could you please take us through the background of your book project? Like where did it come from, what drove you to write it, and what gap in the literature or activist space were you seeking to address?
C
That is a really great question. Okay, so the way that I arrived at the text and those three post ideas and themes that go through the book, is that first? Well, I should back up a little bit, right? I have to say that as an undergrad I did my first set of interviews with residents of the Lower ninth Ward. And so I already, three years after Katrina, had started my research that would eventually wind up being this book. But after I finished that project, I went to graduate school. I got my master's. I was studying reproductive rights and social sciences. I also started my PhD program with that being the track. But Because I am from New Orleans. Because I had this other research when I got into my graduate classes, and they were posing questions to me about post colonialism, or time and trauma and memory. All I could write about was the New Orleans experience, right. And how it is that I thought we were having a. At that point in time, I wasn't quite sure what to call it. You know, I went through the post colonial class, and then I said, well, what is this? Is New Orleans being recolonized? Is, you know, is this the internal colony dynamics? Like, what is this? And so as I would go through courses, I would be trying to put words to the experience that I had as a New Orleanian and as someone who had done this set of interviews with people who were desperately trying to rebuild. And that is really the origin story behind how we wind up with a book that is examining settler colonialism in the city. And I'll just add to that to say that gets us into the post colonial, post Katrina paradigm. And then from there, I was writing, I had produced the dissertation, I produced the manuscript for the book, and Covid broke out. And not only did Covid break out, but we became the first COVID 19 hotspot in the United States. And that was because we had just held Mardi Gras, which is our most social holiday. So because of that, I added at the time, an afterward component to discuss post Covid. And then as I submitted the manuscript, my readers wanted more. So they asked me to kind of weave the theme of post Covid through. And I thought, oh, this would be a really great way to intersect some more information. So I put post Katrina, post colonial, post Covid in the same sentence together. And I say, I use them as illuminating metaphors to show us more about the way that these conditions carry on, even though we want to be beyond them.
B
Excellent.
C
Yeah.
B
And it was really nice, you know, reading the book and seeing those intersecting narratives through each chapter, which really enriched the analysis in a really deep. And at the start of your book, you set the text also in comparison to disaster capitalism accounts, which maybe many people might be familiar with, which are those employed by writers such as Naomi Klein. Could I ask you, how is your critique and approach different or even similar to these disaster capitalism accounts?
C
Well, the way that Naomi Klein articulated disaster capitalism in the Shock Doctrine was actually like a point of entry for me into thinking through what was happening. But I often think about how sometimes people call, or as they're trying to name the structure that's operating, they call out capitalism, but don't call out colonialism. Now, since Klein wrote the book, she wound up getting into some literature with people coming from out of Hawaii that actually does critique plantation colonialism in the aftermath of the Maui fires that took place. So I have seen her scholarship kind of build on the colonial after discussing disaster capitalism. But I would say that sometime in between that analysis is when I was working on the colonial paradigm with it as well, and I consider it useful. Inside of the text, I talk about settler colonial disaster, and then there is a moment where I just start building, building out all of the different things that are in it. Right. To say that there is disaster capitalism is true. It's a capital colonial disaster. It's a plantation capital colonial disaster. And so you see me start playing around with these terms and hyphenating them, and then I'll say, but really, these are just ways of explaining different aspects of this settler colonial system and how it is disastrous and also how it works through disasters. So I think that I borrow from her, I build out from that, and then I kind of neatly pack it into the term of settler colonial disaster.
B
Yeah, excellent. And touching on that settler colonial aspect of that framing as well. You deploy this framework to your study throughout the book. Maybe. For those who might not be familiar with this kind of framework, could you please describe what this approach is? How does it help us understand disaster, and how is it relevant to your study in New Orleans?
C
Oh, that's really good. So first, let's go ahead and give some background about the framework. And the framework of settler colonialism is thinking about a very particular type of colonialism, and it also comes from out of indigenous studies. I often use the work of tucking Yang in. Decolonization is not a metaphor to be able to speak about the particular paradigm around geography and colonial geographies. So I used them as a way to be able to launch from. They outlined that we think about the typical colonial relationship between mother country and colony. But in settler colonialism, where the settler is coming to stay, that geography is then collapsed into one space. And so instead of having the extraction, the exploitation, and the profiting of colonists happening in different locations, it's all happening in the same location. And so that means that there is a different geography at play. There are borders, racialized borders. Here we would talk about reservations and ghettos, places of residential segregation, border zones and contact zones between different racialized geographies. And so that gives us at least the ability to talk about the geography. And there's some other scholars, like Patrick Wolf, Lorenzo Veracini, Winona LaDuke, give us some of the other types of frameworks to talk about how settler colonialism operates. And so in the book, I say that I agree with these ways of thinking through what it is. It's a structure. It's not just an event. But oftentimes, when you say colonialism, people think historic. So I think the most important thing is that we explain to people that it is an ongoing colonial relationship. Right? The space from which I speak to you right now is a settler colony that is engaged in this process, and I add to it several steps. So one is we have a foreign population that is pretending to be native. And the pretending to be native part is extremely important. I always say that that's what gives us this paradigm, or like the pretext of the idea of Americanism, patriotism. All of these things are ideas to make you invest in the idea that this landmass is actually the United States of America. Right? And so that's a way of trying to make the system seem natural. We are around people, especially now with the rise of white supremacy or the rise of violent, conservative white supremacy, where people will talk about their ancestors blood being in the soil, right? And for us, there's a lot of extremist groups where their slogan is blood in soil. And so that is an appeal to a form of trying to appear to be native. Another step would then be that the foreign population, after pretending to be native, they set up sovereignty. They establish sovereignty, which is the ability to dictate the law of the land. And then from there, they can create sovereign networks, which is then these powerful networks that go to guard the law of the land. So I give an example that the sovereignty will also then determine who receives the benefits of a country and who receives its burdens, who receives its privileges, and who receives its punishments. Right? And we can see something like that with the way that the United States is treating our southern border right now, as opposed to our northern border with Canada, or the people who. Who are being targeted by ice. I haven't seen any illegal European immigrants being hounded by ice. Right? And so that goes to show that there are certain people who are then seen as the burden, who are going to receive the punishments, and then we have these systems to then support it. So, for example, you have Congress, you have the military. I named ice. We could talk about fraternal organizations, fraternal brotherhoods, all of our presidents are members of, right? We could speak about those powerful sovereign networks that way. And then another step toward explaining what settler colonialism is, is then that from establishing sovereignty and the network, then they're going to try to replace native peoples. And in the act of replacing, this is where we get full on genocide. And also the idea of exploiting someone until they are eliminated. And so I think that that whole dynamic is a good way to encapsulate what settler colonialism is. We can talk about traditional colonialism, but the role of saying settler then triggers the fact that the seller has come to stay and all of these other steps are a component of it.
B
Yeah. And I think that settler colonial framework you employed was really elucidating not just how you investigate the particularities of New Orleans, but also for me, you know, I'm in a settler colonial society in Australia as well. And I think it really spoke to, you know, the same similar transnational processes that have occurred here.
C
Oh, definitely in the text that talk about I name Australia, I named Canada, I named the United States, and I named Israel. And I think that it's clear to be able to see that dynamic, but you need the framework in order to be able to kind of really see.
D
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B
Absolutely. And we'll come back to the settler colonial framework too. But I just want to focus now a little bit on the reconstruction points. And especially in chapter two of your book, I found really fascinating where you focused on reconstruction after Katrina in New Orleans. And you mentioned that a lot of it was orientated around attracting tourism. And I was particularly struck by an example you gave of the National Slave Ship Museum Project project that you critiqued. Could you please take us through the issues and contradictions that you studied in the use of tourism as a form of reconstruction in New Orleans?
C
Yes. So in New Orleans, our Tourism economy dictates a lot of the way that the city is managed. And I would then argue that that shows that our city government and the state government then, which exploits the city of New Orleans because we are the cash cow. What they then do is dump a lot of resources inside of the French Quarter area and they are extending large amounts of capital to patrol that space, to surveil it. This is also the reason why we've had National Guard deployed several times in the city, is to then monitor and surveil that area. And there are other scholars who have argued that in order to create safe space, then they have to clear people who are in that area. So then that means that there is a targeted population in some of the tourist areas that has to be removed in order for the safe to be considered, the space to be considered safe. And so that's one. So that is triggering things like large amounts of surveillance. Now we're at the point where it triggers AI surveillance and those types of investments over things like investments in education, investments in our social good. It would almost be as though the city is then tailored for tourists as opposed to residents. What this also means is that the economy for the city is based on low wage, low benefit jobs that are not going to give people upward mobility. In fact, it's going to create a type of permanent underclass. And I believe that that shows that the people in the city, especially the people who create culture, especially the culture that is to be commodified, which is black folk in the city of New Orleans, then are used as a type of caricature or a symbol for tourism, as opposed to the city actually being invested in its black population. And so I speak about, in the text, you'll see, you know, pictures, imagery of second lines, which are our musical celebrations or pictures and imagery of black Mardi Gras Indians inside of these very gorgeous costumes. But when it comes to the city being able to protect those cultural practitioners, they don't receive the type, those types of protections. So what we have is the city using them as a symbol to attract tourists, but not caring about their actual life, the actual artists being able to be protected, being able to be invested in, and even just being able to practice, we have now high, costly permits that their cost is ever rising for our second lines, which are our celebrations. So now people are having to pay more and more money in order to be able to participate in their native local culture. And so I think that that is, it shows us this dichotomy of how it is that culture can be celebrated in a way that is superficial and that doesn't have the kind of deep engagement that you would want for the city to have with those who it makes its money off of.
B
Yeah. And I think this flows really nicely onto my next question and also in the next couple of chapters in your book where you. A lot of your interview data is where you intimately demonstrate how black and indigenous residents of Louisiana have had their rebuilding process post Katrina affected by settler colonialism. And there's so many enriching stories here that really brought the everyday experiences of these people to the reader very vividly. Could you perhaps give our listeners maybe an example, case study or story which maybe demonstrates some ways in which Setto colonialism has impacted rebuilding in New Orleans?
C
Mm. My most illustrative example is very complex, but I'm going to try to say some of it. Okay, so I'll take the story of Ms. Duplessis. The book opens up with her story. She. Well, I met her in 2008 and she had just had her home rebuilt by a faith based organization called the Mennonite. And we spoke inside of her living room. She gave me the interview and then afterward, you know, that was the end of that project for the time. And I would see her from time to time in between. But when we went to go do the follow up interviews in 2015, she told me that she had to gut her home and renovate it all over again through volunteer assistance with the Mennonites. And the reason why she would have to do this second gut and rebuild is because she had unknowingly been given a contaminated, toxic drywall for her first rebuild. Now every time that I give this story, or any story inside of that text, I talk about what inside of the system was askew to make that happen. So the first thing would be just speaking about her having to rebuild a second time because of contaminated drywall speaks about the fact that residents in the most devastated area of the sea, having received the most devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, that that neighborhood was not prioritized in the rebuild. So it was treated as though those residents were going to have to rebuild independently on their own, without structural support. So imagine having to rebuild an entire neighborhood piece by piece. And so I speak about this kind of piecemeal construction. I also speak about liability issues when people have to do their rebuilding on their own. Ms. Duplessis didn't just rebuild her home. She is a woman of faith. And so when she had rebuilding materials, she volunteered those materials. Any excess and surplus to other people. This meant that there were other neighbors who also had contaminated toxic drywall in their homes, who also would need to renovate their homes a second time, perhaps without volunteer help. Additionally, she finds out about the toxic drywall months after the lawsuit had already been waged and won for toxic contaminated drywall. So it's the kind of harm that exceeds liability. Even after the court case, the harm is going to continue to happen. And as a matter of fact, it spreads out in this kind of viral network, which gets us to how settler colonialism could be a pandemic or a virus or a bacteria. The fact that it continues to spread out into other people's homes who are also trying to build a piecemeal means. Now, that's just a portion of her story. She also wound up being a victim of contractor fraud in trying to rebuild her church. Right. Because of this kind of piecemeal together rebuild that did not prioritize the most hard hit, heaviest hit residents. I also speak about how she catches Covid the first time after we were a hotspot for Covid. Now, this is a settler colonial disaster because the Trump administration intentionally suppressed evidence of COVID particularly how it would impact black and brown populations, because they did not want to have a scare. And so because they did not inform people early enough. See, in New Orleans, before Mardi Gras, the Department of Homeland Security comes in and they brief the city about any potential threats or harms that could happen. So because the Trump administration had not passed the information to the Department of Homeland Security, they did not pass the information down to the city. And Covid came into the city and we had our first outbreak. Ms. Duplessis was in some of those people. I also had another resident, Mr. Ronald Lewis, who died during that first initial wave of the coronavirus. And then I speak about how during the 19th anniversary of Katrina, I go down to the local neighborhood. Celebration or commemoration? It's a little bit of both, right. A commemoration for those who are lost and a celebration of life going on. Right. Continuing on, when I go to that commemoration event, I see Ms. Duplessis daughter who tells me that she had just recovered from a second bout of COVID Now I use. And we can then talk about how Covid has a long life, right, because of these initial steps not taken by the Trump administration, how they attempted to gut resources, how they privatized these kinds of pandemic protocols that would have ensured that we could have actually got a management on Covid in its initial stages. So each time that I give a story, I don't really like to use the story to talk about the residents. I use the story to be able to talk about the structure, how it operates. And in my initial speaking about Ms. Duplessis story, I ask how is it that the most vulnerable people wind up experiencing disaster repetitiously and almost in ways that we could predict? We can predict that colonialism not just causes disasters, but it causes disasters that we can foreshadow what those disasters are.
F
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B
Yeah, and I think this is a really wonderful description of what your book does in taking these national level process or state level processes which could be presented in the abstract, but your book goes into the everyday experience of these residents which enriches those structural problems. So thank you for taking us through one particular example of that. Cassandra now let's now change track just a little bit because later in your book you have an extended critique of Beyonce which I found very fascinating myself. And you analyze her song formation, which I understand was quite a big hit when it came out and its music video is set in post Katrina New Orleans. And when I was doing research here this this song was described as on Wikipedia as a celebration of black pride and resilience. Now this song received criticism from conservative figures upon its release for different reasons. But how did you analyze this track in your book and how does it fit into your story?
C
Well First, I should say I did not intend to do a chapter on Beyonce. When I was first putting together my research, what happened is that her video came out, and then people wanted my opinion about it, and I had a complex opinion about it. So then I started to write, and then it turned into more. And I'm always very careful to know who's in the beehive, right. Who's some of Beyonce's most important followers before I start launching into my critique. Okay, so if there are beehive listeners, okay, they might want to just go ahead and skip this part. But what I decided to do is, like I said, I'm not trying to critique Beyonce, although it may go into that territory. What I'm actually trying to do is use her song formation and how she navigates with the song to be able to speak about liberalism and the drawbacks of liberalism versus having a decolonial mindset. So that was actually what the work of the chapter was supposed to be. And when I put it in my dissertation, as opposed to being the last chapter, I made it the first chapter because what I wanted was for people to read and get rid of liberalism out the door. Right. Instead of it coming later on at the end of the book. So that's the purpose now in the song. And I like the fact that you talked about the fact that conservatives were against the song. So when she releases it, she upsets a lot of different people, particularly because there is an extended scene of her standing atop a police car when there is floodwater surrounding her, and the police took that as being anti police, so they protest her. There's protests in New York, and New York is known to have a very aggressive police union protecting its officers. And so they demonstrate in such a way that then Beyonce has to issue a statement, and she issues a statement that says something to the effects of, she supports police, but she is not for police brutality. Right. And I considered that to be superficial. That is one of the ways to get into what I think is a superficial engagement that she has with the city of New Orleans. And I say, I would rather have heard a decolonial statement. Right. Which doesn't have the need to first pander to the police and say, oh, yes, we love police, but. Right. I would say that a decolonial way of approaching this would be more along the lines of saying, well, I don't support police brutality. And let's talk about how policing is a colonial violence. A colonial form of violence. On whose grounds are you policing? And surveilling literal grounds? What gives you this authority. And I kind of play around with this a little bit because, you know, okay, someone is against police brutality. Well, where is your cutoff line? Are you okay? When the police pull me over and ask me where I'm going and where I've come from and do I know anyone in this area, is that something you're against? Right. What about. And these are real instances. What about when the police stop and illegally search my car? Are you okay with that? Right. Where is the dividing line? And then additionally, in the city of New Orleans, the New Orleans Police Department killed people during Hurricane Katrina. So if you have a video that demonstrates you standing atop the police car and the police are upset, you don't use that to be able to speak about these really deep problems that are revealed by Hurricane Katrina. You give us some type of sanitized version of what the problem is. And I argue that the video is a sanitized version. And I speak about how, as an artist, we see her continuously engage in this way in New Orleans and in other cities. And I would argue, for example, just to give a little bit more detail, you know, she winds up doing the formation song in New Orleans, but didn't have New Orleans on the official tour for Formation. So that is that form of extraction. Our city has a certain flair to it that the world loves. And so we have to be able to call out when people are using the flair, but again, not engaging in the deep life of the people who create that flare.
B
Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Cassandra. And in your last or your final substantive chapter, going a bit further into this state sanctioned violence, at the time of writing, you noted that despite New Orleans being a sanctuary city, ICE at that time had said that it was ramping up deportations. When you were writing this chapter, myself, along with many other people around the world, have been horrified seeing the violence of ICE on the streets of America. Can I ask, what is the situation of ICE in New Orleans to date?
C
Great question. Well, we are still having active ICE patrols, and they are still arresting people, deporting people. And I should also say it's not just ice. We also have border patrol. And that is because there is a. I guess it would be an act or an executive order that basically it makes it so that the first 100 miles around our border that goes all around the country can have border patrol in it as a measure of emergencies. And so they are just declaring it that there is an emergency, that border patrol has to be inside of New Orleans. Now that means that we have border patrol. We have ice. We already are an extensive police state. We have different types of police that people have never heard of before. So we don't just have U.S. customs and Border. We also have things like our housing authority has its own police. The French Quarter has its own task force of police. We have so many different types of police that we're in a police state. And we should also say we're a state of mass incarceration. We have been the global capital for incarceration for many years. And we also were the state that started to take some of the student protestors who were protesting against the genocide in Palestine. They wound up being held in Jinnah at our ICE facilities. So our policing prison, carceral state apparatus is central to this conservative assault on black and brown people across the nation. We are a ground zero for this ramping up of the carceral state on a massive level, because, as I said, these people who are protesting global issues are then being sent here and detained inside of our prisons. So we have a very active scene. And this also is because our governor, Governor Jeff Landry, has invited the police, this policing apparatus, and the Trump administration to come into the state and to ramp up operations. There's levels, okay? And because the New Orleans Police Department here is under consent decree, meaning that they were found to have been operating unconstitutionally by the Department of Justice under the Obama administration, and they are still under consent decree, meaning that they're in court with the Department of Justice trying to get them to adhere to constitutional policing. And they've had that arrangement for years. Additionally, the New Orleans Parish Prison are under that same consent decree or the same structure of a consent decree. They are both have been found to be operating unconstitutionally, need to be corrected, and in court with the Department of Justice because of this. When our governor took over, he mobilized the state police to come into the city under a title called Troop nola. And Troop NOLA does not have to adhere to the consent decree, so they can come in and do whatever types of policing it is that they do because they don't have to adhere to the consent decree, which is trying to direct us to constitutional policing. Okay? And so this shows us the levels that exist and additionally how these officials are operating in tandem with the Trump administration to bring the police and this policing state down to the people in a multifaceted event. And so I just gave you our local police, the state police, ice, border patrol, and then all of these other segments of police. So we are in a police state, and they are actively arresting people and Perhaps in a circular. A circular outcome. The ICE has just arrested a person who was in the New Orleans Police Department. He was a recruit. He was a recruit who was an illegal immigrant. And so they're trying to figure out how did he get a chance to be able to be in the police. Are the New Orleans police not thoroughly vetting the people that they put onto the streets? It is now the latest scandal. So, yes, they are still actively patrolling. And I want to make sure I say two things. The governor who has asked for this to manifest itself on the streets, he has just been appointed to Donald Trump's special envoy to Greenland. So the Trump administration is trying to have a front going into Greenland and wants to either purchase or strong arm Greenland into becoming the property of the United States. And our governor is a part of his special envoy to do so. Okay, so I want to make sure that I say that. And I feel like there was something else, but that was mind blowing enough.
B
Yeah, it's all connected and it's police all the way down. And I guess against, you know, what we're seeing in New Orleans in the post Katrina rebuild. And this is quite a big question, but what would a truly liberatory post Katrina rebuild possibly look like? And this is something that you do.
C
Address in your book, and it also leaves us open for the next project as well. I think I should make sure that I say that this book is rooted in my dissertation. And my dissertation was 600 pages, so this book is only a portion. Right. And I was trying to figure out how I would carve up the work. And this book is on settler colonialism and explaining the problem. One of the subsequent texts would then be on decolonization. And so I have some of the information already kind of foreshadowed that I would be getting into in subsequent volumes. And so one is that a truly liberatory rebuild would be concerned with decolonization, which is about how we abolish coloniality and these colonial relationships. Now that that, again, is a whole book in and of itself. But what it would mean is that we would have to interact with the people and the land in ways that are not based on capitalism or in ways that are, and I should say, and in ways that are mutually beneficial. Right. And indigenous critique is that as we heal the people, we heal the land. And as we heal the land, we heal the people. And so we would need to have that kind of strategy as being the thing that guides our decolonialism. Additionally, I would have to always say, because I started off discussing Tuck and Yang, that it would actually have to be conversations about land, land return and what that looks like that has to be in there. And not just conversations, but actual action. So I would think we need a decoloniality that addresses land. We need one that addresses environment and people. And we would also need something that addresses healing because of everything that it is that we've just gone through. And that in and of itself is a nice chunk. Now we would also need to discuss things like justice, reparative justice, restorative justice, reparations. I mean, there's so much more that is there in the book. I tried to give us just a few little tidbits to be able to think about as we wait for the next volume of the book to come out. And so I speak a little bit about that, but.
D
But.
C
It goes back to talk about ICE and also what Katrina revealed to us. But it would have to address these problems that Katrina unveiled. So what we saw was a racialized area. We saw feminized poverty. We saw in the rebuilding process, the criminalization of Latino immigrants. And so I speak about these kinds of issues. We see them attempting to rebuild the levees with doubtable results. We see them attempting to also control the racial narrative and the racial population that would return to the city. These are all areas that would have to be addressed in addition to some of the more historical processes of removal that I also speak about in the book.
B
Book.
C
So I think that's enough to kind of light our pathway moving forward. And also I always like to end on the idea of being disaster prepared for whatever it is that comes our way while we are doing so.
B
And. And do you have a potential release date for the next book?
C
I.
B
A vexing question.
C
I know I worked a long time to get us here and so I would say that it's already, for the most part, written. I'm just in the space where I would need to edit and then also add some of the research that I've done since that. Since the time that I initially wrote it. So I'm not going to give us a date because I don't want to wind up in the GTA 6 territory where people wait on the gay to drop. I don't want to do that to us, but I will say it's forthcoming.
B
Excellent. Well, yeah, we'll all be very excited to have a read of your next volume. And in the meantime, I. I really recommend everyone to get your hands on Settle. Colonialism is the Disaster. And thank you, Cassandra, for joining us.
C
Oh, yes, thank you so much. This was a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you, everyone, for listening.
B
Thank. You.
C
Sa.
Episode: Cassandra Shepard, "Settler Colonialism is the Disaster: A Critique of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina and During the COVID-19 Pandemic"
Host: Elliot (New Books Network)
Guest: Dr. Cassandra Shepard
Date: February 15, 2026
This episode features a deep conversation with Dr. Cassandra Shepard about her new book, Settler Colonialism is the Disaster, published by University of Illinois Press. The book provides a sweeping critique of the intersecting disasters of settler colonialism, Hurricane Katrina (2005), and the COVID-19 pandemic in New Orleans. Through historical analysis, personal interviews, and cultural critique—including a close reading of Beyoncé’s "Formation"—Shepard explores the ongoing impacts of colonial structures on Black and Indigenous New Orleanians, and argues for a decolonial vision of urban recovery and justice.
“Really, these are just ways of explaining different aspects of this settler colonial system and how it is disastrous and also how it works through disasters.”
— Cassandra Shepard (08:04)
“It is an ongoing colonial relationship… The space from which I speak to you right now is a settler colony that is engaged in this process.”
— Cassandra Shepard (09:48)
“Culture can be celebrated in a way that is superficial and that doesn't have the kind of deep engagement that you would want for the city to have with those who it makes its money off of.”
— Cassandra Shepard (19:23)
“I use the story to be able to talk about the structure, how it operates… The most vulnerable people wind up experiencing disaster repetitiously and almost in ways that we could predict.”
— Cassandra Shepard (27:55)
“I say, I would rather have heard a decolonial statement… policing is a colonial violence. On whose grounds are you policing?”
— Cassandra Shepard (33:13)
“We are a ground zero for this ramping up of the carceral state on a massive level, because… people who are protesting global issues are then being sent here and detained inside of our prisons.”
— Cassandra Shepard (40:20)
“A truly liberatory rebuild would be concerned with decolonization, which is about how we abolish coloniality and these colonial relationships… As we heal the people, we heal the land, and as we heal the land, we heal the people.”
— Cassandra Shepard (43:28)
On the Triple Post Framework:
“I use them as illuminating metaphors to show us more about the way that these conditions carry on, even though we want to be beyond them.”
— Cassandra Shepard (04:48)
On Disaster Capitalism:
“People call out capitalism, but don't call out colonialism.”
— Cassandra Shepard (06:32)
On Settler Colonialism’s Structure:
“The foreign population, after pretending to be native, they set up sovereignty… That gives us this paradigm, or, like, the pretext of the idea of Americanism, patriotism. All of these things are ideas to make you invest in the idea that this landmass is actually the United States of America.”
— Cassandra Shepard (10:25)
On Tourism-Driven Reconstruction:
“It would almost be as though the city is then tailored for tourists as opposed to residents.”
— Cassandra Shepard (18:16)
On Predictable Disaster:
“We can predict that colonialism not just causes disasters, but it causes disasters that we can foreshadow what those disasters are.”
— Cassandra Shepard (28:17)
On Policing as Colonial Violence:
“Let’s talk about how policing is a colonial violence. A colonial form of violence. On whose grounds are you policing?”
— Cassandra Shepard (33:13)
On Future Horizons:
“As we heal the people, we heal the land, and as we heal the land, we heal the people... We need a decoloniality that addresses land, environment and people, and also justice, reparations, restorative justice.”
— Cassandra Shepard (44:09)
| Timestamp | Segment / Discussion Topic | |------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:21 | Origins, motivation, and framework of the book | | 06:15 | Disaster capitalism vs. settler colonial disaster | | 08:32 | Defining settler colonialism and geography | | 16:00 | Critique of tourism-focused post-Katrina reconstruction | | 21:34 | The personal story of Ms. Duplessis and the structural critique | | 30:42 | Beyoncé’s “Formation,” liberalism vs. decolonialism, and musical representation | | 36:49 | Policing, ICE, the carceral state, and current local dynamics | | 43:13 | What a truly liberatory post-Katrina rebuild could look like (“decolonization”) | | 47:14 | On the next book project and book’s future directions |
Cassandra Shepard’s Settler Colonialism is the Disaster is a deeply interdisciplinary, structural, and lived critique of disaster in New Orleans. Blending theory and narrative, personal testimony and political analysis, the book insists that we confront not only the aftermath of disasters like Katrina and COVID-19, but the settler colonial structures that produce and perpetuate these crises. Shepard’s vision is ultimately one of decolonial transformation—for New Orleans and beyond.