Lessons from the Dawning of the Anthropocene: Trials, Evolving Traditions, and New Directions for Communities Hosting Nuclear Disaster - Labriola

Lessons from the Dawning of the Anthropocene: Trials, Evolving Traditions, and New Directions for Communities Hosting Nuclear Disaster. Part I: Struggles and Evolving Strategies to Secure Resilience and Health in Marshallese Communities

 

CHAIR: JOHNSTON, Barbara Rose (Ctr for Political Ecology)

 

LABRIOLA, Monica C. (UHWO) Celebrating Survival in the Shadow of the Bomb: Ebeye, Marshall Islands NAKAHARA, Satoe (Chukyo U) The Perception of Radiation Disaster in the Marshall Islands JUSTICE, Judith (UCSF) Leprosy in the Marshall Islands and the U.S.: Cross-cultural Implications for Policy Formulation and Treatment DUKE, Michael and KLIPOWICZ, Caleb (U Memphis) Poison and Pleasure: The Meanings of Alcohol Use among Marshall Islanders in the US GENZ, Joseph (UHH) “Breaking the Shell”: Cultural Discovery, Revitalization, and Resilience of Nuclear Refugees from Bikini and Rongelap in the Marshall Islands MELLO, Christy (UHWO) Pu’uhonua O Waianae: Sustainable Approaches to Displacement and Community Health and Wellness

 

JOHNSTON, Barbara Rose (Ctr for Political Ecology) Lessons from the Dawning of the Anthropocene: Trials, Evolving Traditions, and New Directions for Communities Hosting Nuclear Disaster. Part I: Struggles and Evolving Strategies to Secure Resilience and Health in Marshallese Communities. In cracking the atom and unleashing nuclear power on this planet, we humans created a complex and completely unique force, one that generates immense power for a few and terrible suffering for many. This session considers the trials endured by host communities and emerging lessons from seven decades of life in a nuclear disaster zone. Part one explores the Marshallese experience and evolving lessons at home and in diaspora. Parts two and three offer a cross- cultural exploration of impacts, risk and uncertainties, and adaptive response. Collectively, we explore the architecture of power and controlling processes driving nuclear expansion, shaping consequential damages, encouraging remedial actions, and the relative success of struggles to build truly sustainable architectures of power.

 

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2017.