Vocal Ability and Musical Performances of Nuclear Damages in the Marshall Islands

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica A. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Structural Violence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Text Setting ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Bikini Atoll ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Nuclear Tests

The United States conducted sixty-seven nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946 through 1958. The program was shrouded in secrecy; information about the tests conducted on Marshallese bodies and their land remains classified. This essay considers how Marshallese women from Bikini Atoll and Rongelap Atoll musically sound physical and physiological disruptions and dislocations that expose broader damages caused by the nuclear testing program. Analyzing compositions and performances from a repertoire of Marshallese “radiation songs,” the essay proposes a stylistic framework that works to familiarize listeners with a sonorized logic of radiation which is compiled through recurring motifs of the disabled voice, text setting and silences, and the figure of the question, literal and rhetorical. I stress the political import of these songs as highlighting the failures of biopolitical controls on communities by exposing the production of confined disability at the level of cultural and structural violence.

The Marshallese look: Clothing, culture and identity in a disappearing world

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-312
Author(s):  
C. A. DeCoursey ◽  
Ewa B. Krawczyk
Keyword(s):  
Generational Differences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Central Pacific ◽  
Central Pacific Ocean ◽  
Youth Identity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Style Preferences

Marshallese youth face extraordinary challenges in creating an identity, due to their economy, isolated location – the Marshall Islands are located in the central Pacific Ocean and comprise of more than 1200 islands and islets – the history of US nuclear testing in the islands and climate change. Contemporary youth identity construction requires constant acts of acculturation, due to media and globalization. This study used content and transitivity analyses to explore how Marshallese youth understand their distinctive look. Content sub-unit frequencies indicated that the Marshallese community was the most significant factor in defining style, particularly cultural uniqueness, history, religion and generational differences. Collective pronouns indicated that acculturation anxieties stemmed from cultural differences and loss and were managed by asserting community affiliation. Personal style preferences reflected contextual and financial limitations. Process-type analysis constructed culture as the most vigorous actor and speaker, where youth roles included perception and cognition, with other islands’ views mediating between the two. Roles attributed to the media and the West included emoting and wanting, where China more closely resembled Marshallese youth, though the ubiquity of western content may render its agency somewhat invisible to Marshallese youth. Overall, Marshallese youth harmonize their individuality within attributed community and contextual factors. This is likely to be their preferred strategy when they emigrate to the United States, a highly individualistic country. Marshallese parents and second-generation Marshallese will require support, in their new context.

FOREWORD

Geophysics ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles C. Bates
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bad Faith ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current State ◽  
Nuclear Tests ◽  
Test Ban

A decade ago, it would have been the rare geophysicist indeed who would have predicted that his specialty was destined to become a major topic of discussion between such world political leaders as Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, Prime Minister Macmillan of Great Britain, and Chairman Khrushchev of the USSR. Yet this has come to pass during the past six years, for in 1958 there started the continuing round of international negotiations directed towards the creation of an effective underground test-ban treaty. During the conduct of these negotiations, it has been repeatedly necessary to assess the current state-of-the-art in seismology and its sister geophysical sciences, for the only detectable signals known to propagate for several hundreds to thousands of miles from underground nuclear tests are seismic in nature. With the United States policy being only to seek an underground-test-ban agreement incorporating strong safeguards against acts of bad faith, it is important that the political safe-guards be backed up by those of a geophysical nature.

WICHITA MOUNTAINS SEISMOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY

Geophysics ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. G. Gudzin ◽  
J. H. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Control System ◽  
Air Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Wichita Mountains ◽  
Seismological Observatory ◽  
Nuclear Tests

The Wichita Mountains Seismological Observatory was engineered and is now being operated under the technical supervision of the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) by The Geotechnical Corporation of Garland, Texas. The work is being performed as a part of Project VELA Uniform, under the overall direction of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The seismological equipment used is identical to that recommended in 1958 by the Conference of Experts for detecting violations of a possible agreement on the suspension of nuclear tests. The equipment recommended is quoted in Appendix I attached to this report. This is the first station to be built employing the recommended instrumentation and the capabilities of a control system using such instrumentation have not been determined. The observatory’s performance should be of great interest to delegates of the United States, United Kingdom, and U.S.S.R. who are currently negotiating in Geneva for a ban on nuclear testing.

Disability and the Social Politics of “Natural” Disaster

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Watts Belser
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New World ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Political Exclusion

The stories we tell about crisis and catastrophe often intensify structural violence, augmenting existing dynamics of racism, sexism, classism, and ableism. Disaster stories often reinforce cultural narratives of suffering womanhood and tragic stories of disability to portray people with disabilities—especially women—as “natural” and “inevitable” victims of a harsh new world. Examining both contemporary rhetoric in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and classical rabbinic Jewish narrative, I argue that tales of communities in crisis commonly depoliticize disaster. By inscribing the disabled body with a narrative of “natural” vulnerabilities and inevitable suffering, conventional disaster discourse obscures the political significance of structural inequalities that render people with disabilities more at risk in disaster. Bringing together disability studies scholarship and Jewish feminist ethics, I challenge the discursive tendency to portray disabled individuals as symbols of suffering—and to focus on the pathos of an individual in distress instead of critiquing social inequality. I advocate a constructive, redemptive storytelling that illuminates and critiques social and political exclusion, that underscores the agency and dignity of people in crisis, that valorizes the disability justice movement’s call for interdependence in community, and that captures the artistry and resiliency of disabled lives.

scholarly journals Investigating the Petition of Marshall Islands against Britain in the International Court of Justice

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Sahar Asadi Moghadam ◽  
Abu Mohammad Asgar Khani
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Nuclear Tests ◽  
First Time

The international court of justice was established by Charter of the United Nations and is considered as one of its integral parts in which only experienced and knowledgeable judges and lawyers can be employed. In fact, it consists of several independent judicial institutions. Marshall Islands, a country which was cruelly imposed to nuclear tests, was brave enough to sue powerful countries with nuclear weapons. In 1996, nuclear weapons case was considered by the international court of justice for the first time. All the court’s members came to this conclusion that these countries should stop their nuclear activities and they are not permitted to use any nuclear weapon. As a result they ratified a bill. Then, Marshall Islands’ petition was considered by the international court of justice in The Hague. This country also took legal action against U.S.A. and the federal judiciary of the United States accepted to take it into consideration. This paper aims at analyzing the petition of Marshall Islands against Britain in the international court of justice. According to the content of this petition, countries can’t develop their nuclear weapons which threat men and the world. As a result, the destruction of present nuclear weapons is the only effective way to achieve this goal.

scholarly journals Blown to Hell: The Health Legacies of US Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Merissa Daborn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Health Consequences ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Left Behind

From 1946 to 1958 the Marshall Islands was home to extensive US nuclear testing, testing that left behind an extensive health legacy. This paper examines the initial responses to the testing to see how they influenced a legacy that has spanned decades and identifies the indirect and long lasting health consequences and why they appeared. Just as crucial as to why and how these health consequences have affected the Marshallese people, is who has taken responsibility since. Focusing on the 1980s to the 2000s, this paper examines the significance of the responses, or lack thereof, from the United States and how it has contributed to the health legacies of the Marshall Islands. 

scholarly journals Radiation Sounds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica A. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Nuclear Bomb ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Bikini Atoll ◽  
The Us ◽  
Effects Of Radiation ◽  
The Voice

On March 1, 1954, the US military detonated “Castle Bravo,” its most powerful nuclear bomb, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Two days later, the US military evacuated the Marshallese to a nearby atoll where they became part of a classified study, without their consent, on the effects of radiation on humans. In Radiation Sounds Jessica A. Schwartz examines the seventy-five years of Marshallese music developed in response to US nuclear militarism on their homeland. Schwartz shows how Marshallese singing draws on religious, cultural, and political practices to make heard the deleterious effects of US nuclear violence. Schwartz also points to the literal silencing of Marshallese voices and throats compromised by radiation as well as the United States’ silencing of information about the human radiation study. By foregrounding the centrality of the aural and sensorial in understanding nuclear testing’s long-term effects, Schwartz offers new modes of understanding the relationships between the voice, sound, militarism, indigeneity, and geopolitics.

scholarly journals Radiation maps of ocean sediment from the Castle Bravo crater

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (31) ◽  
pp. 15420-15424
Author(s):  
Emlyn W. Hughes ◽  
Monica Rouco Molina ◽  
Maveric K. I. L. Abella ◽  
Ivana Nikolić-Hughes ◽  
Malvin A. Ruderman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Surface Sediment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Core Sample ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Bikini Atoll ◽  
Weapon Test ◽  
Ocean Sediment ◽  
Cesium 137

On March 1, 1954, the United States conducted its largest thermonuclear weapon test in Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands; the detonation was code-named “Castle Bravo.” Radioactive deposits in the ocean sediment at the bomb crater are widespread and high levels of contamination remain today. One hundred thirty cores were collected from the top 25 cm of surface sediment at ocean depths approaching 60 m over a ∼2-km2 area, allowing for a presentation of radiation maps of the Bravo crater site. Radiochemical analyses were performed on the following radionuclides: plutonium-(239,240), plutonium-238, americium-241, bismuth-207, and cesium-137. Large values of plutonium-(239,240), americium-241, and bismuth-207 are found. Comparisons are made to core sample results from other areas in the northern Marshall Islands.

scholarly journals In the Shadow of the Mushroom Cloud: Nuclear Testing, Radioactive Fallout, and Damage to U.S. Agriculture, 1945 to 1970

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 244-274
Author(s):  
Keith Meyers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Test Site ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radioactive Fallout ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Radioactive Material ◽  
Nevada Test Site ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Nuclear Tests

In the 1950s the United States conducted scores of atmospheric nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. This article studies the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests on agriculture in regions hundreds of miles from the NTS. While research has shown that this radioactive material posed a health risk near the NTS, little is known about the direct economic effects nuclear testing may have had. I find that fallout from nuclear tests adversely affected U.S. agricultural production, and this result suggests that nuclear testing had a much broader economic and environmental impact than previously thought.

The Nuclear Sensorium: Cold War Nuclear Imperialism and Sensory Violence

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Shiga
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Ecological Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
United States Military ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Testing Program ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThis paper traces the sensory dimensions of nuclear imperialism focusing on the Cold War nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States military in the Marshall Islands during the 1950s. Key to the formation of the “nuclear sensorium” were the interfaces between vibration, sound, and radioactive contamination, which were mobilized by scientists such as oceanographer Walter Munk as part of the US Nuclear Testing Program. While scientists occupied privileged points in technoscientific networks to sense the effects of nuclear weapons, a series of lawsuits filed by communities affected by the tests drew attention to military-scientific use of inhabitants’ bodies as repositories of data concerning the ecological impact of the bomb and the manner in which sensing practices used to extract this data extended the violence and trauma of nuclear weapons. Nuclear imperialism projected its power not only through weapons tests, the vaporization of land and the erosion of the rights of people who lived there, but also through the production of a “nuclear sensorium”—the differentiation of modes of sensing the bomb through legal, military, and scientific discourses and the attribution of varying degrees of epistemological value and legal weight to these sensory modes.

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