2022
175 rem of radiation, 350 times the maximum recommended
Guam, both in the material sense of ruins and the social prac-
dose in a year. What impact did nuclear testing have on the
tices which occur in, around, and because of ruin.
particular climate and ecosystem of the Bikini Atoll? Populations were displaced prior to the bombing and afterwards. The United States left behind a radiological legacy that is very hard to be proud of. ‘Downwinders’ are still seeking reparations for health effects from the fallout clouds. There is a tremendous cost to the entire Pacific Proving Ground which is still being ascertained and paid for today by civilians living in the detritus of militarization. Challenging an ‘imperial’ notion of ruin which focuses on its material outcomes, Ann Stoler provides a piercing reconsideration of what is a ruin, turning instead to
The Territorial Frame A proper study of archaeology on this subject would continue to unearth evidence of social ruination and methodically examine its impact on the present, but we must be honest here—this is not at attempt at a full archaeologist’s report. I am merely introducing the frame of reference which establishes the connective tissue between the reports which follow. Each territorial layer is inscribed by a geographical frame—the military base edge of the former Andersen Air Base. The edge itself, a thickened band or buffer zone, ranges
the aftershocks of empire, to the material and social afterlife of structures, sensibilities, and things. Such effects reside in the corroded hollows of landscapes, in the gutted infrastructures of segregated cityscapes and in the microecologies of matter and mind. The focus then is not on inert remains but on their vital refiguration.10
from 200 to 800 feet in width, with a length meandering over
It is precisely this ‘refiguration’ which is sought on
built up by the will to exclude the former, and yet it does not
fifteen miles. The zone is easily depicted as a line when observing the island as a whole; zooming in on that line reveals a fuzzy pair of boundaries. The civilian edge is built up by the economic opportunity of the interior. The military edge is