the gridded layout of streets bear witness to the military oc-
buying the necessary time to ensure that it is suitable for visi-
cupation. (see It is a fine place for a picnic, which also points
tation. Only limited pockets of the jungle-limestone forest
to a trend of domestication in post-military space. 3 This neu-
carpet can be visited.
tralization of post-military space runs counter to more radical reclamations which I will posit later.
My archaeological undertaking, however, is neither the interior of the base nor its exterior; it is the edge itself.
Other sites in Puerto Rico have not met such a happy
I have studied the edges of military bases across three conti-
transition. The adjacent island of Vieques was used by the
nents, specializing in the military archaeology of fence edges
Navy as a bombing range and, when released back to civilian
of island-bases, including the Azores, Okinawa, Crete, Puerto
control, was found to be a volatile and unusable piece of land
Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii.5 The spaces between civil-
4
with unexploded ordnance and radioactive contamination.
ian development and the military base, such as the strips of
Still, the Department of the Interior converted the land into
land immediately outside Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa,
the Vieques National Wildlife Refuge, thereby absolving the
are zones of latent opportunity. It is the space of push-and-
military of full clean-up obligations. The land is touted by lo-
pull, a deterritorialized strip, and a threshold of negotiation
cal hotels as pristine wilderness offering idyllic views, while
between the military and civilian worlds. This negotiation re-
the truth lies embedded in the soil.
veals a paradox of military space, via Deleuze and Guattari: “It
A similar transfer has occurred on Guam. The land was transferred in sync with the military pullout and unceremoniously named Base Edge National Reserve. The US Department of the Interior is content to keep the land under wraps,
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is always on the most deterritorialized element reterritorialization takes place.�6 It is at the edges the adjacent community exhibits their desires, whether in the form of active protest or farming. These social practices at the most intimate scale mark the erosion of a colossal institution.