GUARDING THREATENED CULTURES
Researchers striving to protect cultures of hurricane-affected communities

While much focus is being directed to repair and rebuilding of New Orleans’ and southeast Louisiana’s structure, several LSU researchers have set their sights on a different area of concern. Their work involves the cultural preservation of the areas and communities impacted by Hurricane Katrina.

Surveying the Cultural Landscape

LSU Department of English Assistant Professor Carolyn Ware is part of a long-term cultural study looking at displaced community members from hurricane affected areas. Because so many people and in some cases whole communities are displaced, there is a concern over whether or not some cultures and communities will be able to maintain or reform in their local areas. If people are unable to return to their homes and jobs within a relatively short span of time, the cultural landscape of the area may suffer a loss of occupational traditions, food ways, and entire ways of life.

Ware is hopeful that communities like that of the Croatian American fisherman in Plaquemines Parish will find ways to rebuild and maintain traditional family jobs like oyster fishing. As the study continues, Ware aims to institute a field school that will invite scholars and community members to form talks about these cultures and how they relate to the local landscape.

Documenting Devastation

Long after most news media have come and gone, there will still be interviews and film cameras in many areas in south Louisiana and along the Mississippi coast. LSU Professor of English James Catano and his students are working on an on-going documentary film project tentatively titled "Katrina: After the Aftermath." Approximately six and a half hours of film have already been shot in both Louisiana and Mississippi cities, but filmmakers expect to remain long enough to become incorporated into the communities.

Catano points out that students are ideal for this kind of work because many of them are filming in their own home towns and are already close to their subjects. The finished project is predicted to be a fifty six minute long film that will show how devastated communities attempt to restore their communal lives, even as they struggle to recover economically.

Preserving the Historical Record

In an effort that began almost immediately after Katrina struck, librarians in LSU Libraries’ Special Collections division, led by Associate Dean Faye Phillips, are saving rare books, photographs, albums, cassettes and other media from hurricane damage. From New Orleans’ Notre Dame Seminary alone, 700 volumes were re-located to Hill Memorial Library, home to the Special Collections division. Though some books are simply being held for safe keeping, many are damaged.

Maintaining and repairing these records has been a complicated matter requiring fast and creative thinking. Conventional conservation practice assumes that recovery and repair can begin within 48 hours of the damage and that the water damage was caused by clean water. Unfortunately, many of the items Special Collections are working with have been submerged for weeks in contaminated water. Wet or moldy books and records are temporarily stored in a large freezer to stabilize the materials and halt the growth of mold that may be present until cleaning and repair can be
performed. –Melanie Haley

ON THE WEB:
LSU Department of English
LSU Libraries Special Collections Division

from Storm Issue 2005