Military pollution and natural purity: seeing nature and knowing contamination in Vieques, Puerto Rico |
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| Authors: | Jeffrey Sasha Davis Jessica S Hayes-Conroy Victoria M Jones |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Geography, University of Vermont, 200 Old Mill, 94 University Place, Burlington, VT 05405-0114, USA;(2) Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, 302 Walker Bldg, University Park, PA 16802, USA |
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| Abstract: | Military activities have produced contaminated environments at many sites around the world. This contamination and the associated
health risks play a large role in how these places can be redeveloped after military use. In this essay we focus on the island
of Vieques, Puerto Rico which was used as a bombing range by the US military for six decades until 2003. We examine the ways
different groups of people perceive this formerly militarized landscape and the ways that these perceptions legitimatize certain
redevelopment options over others. Through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and an analysis of textual
materials we found that many local residents view the island as suffering from severe contamination while the large number
of visitors, tourism promoters and North Americans now flocking to the post-militarized Vieques view it quite differently.
These perceptions of purity and contamination, affected by different knowledges of the island’s history, have led to differing
valuation of the landscape and contentious economic, political, and cultural battles over an island often labeled “natural”
despite a history of military use and social exclusion.
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| Keywords: | Militarism Contamination US fish and wildlife Landscape Risk Political ecology |
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