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Archaeology of brutal encounter: heritage and bomb testing on B ikini A toll, R epublic of the M arshall I slands
Author(s) -
Brown Steve
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
archaeology in oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1834-4453
pISSN - 0728-4896
DOI - 10.1002/arco.5000
Subject(s) - toll , publicity , listing (finance) , homeland , death toll , archaeology , history , political science , law , sociology , politics , medicine , business , socioeconomics , immunology , finance
When the nude dancer, M icheline B ernardini, modelled the bikini at a public pool in P aris on 5 J uly 1946, the blaze of publicity that followed the unleashing of the fashion icon immediately trivialised the humanly willed catastrophe wrought on B ikini A toll and its I ndigenous inhabitants four days previously. Between 1946 and 1958, a total of 67 nuclear bomb tests were carried out in the M arshall I slands, including in 1954 the world's first deliverable hydrogen bomb, which vaporised three of B ikini's islands and produced radioactive fallout that resulted in the deaths of, and ill‐health effects for, M arshallese, A merican and J apanese people and for the atoll itself. Today, B ikini A toll is almost uninhabited. This paper is based on a preliminary survey of the atoll and outlines the material traces of nuclear testing, which comprise profound landscape modifications and other physical evidence, including an experimental target fleet of sunken ships, buildings and infrastructure remains, and cultural plantings. Listing of B ikini A toll on the W orld H eritage L ist in 2010 has (re)materialised and (re)imagined the cultural landscape of B ikini A toll in a way that privileges the global story of bomb testing over the local narrative of lost homeland. However, I argue that the listing of B ikini A toll is a subversive act coopted by both global and local actors in a way that is mutually beneficial.