An Exploration in the Landscapes and Narratives of the Anthropocene
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Laura Pietilä Contaminated and Scarred: An Exploration in the Landscapes and Narratives of the Anthropocene Master’s thesis in Global Environmental History 1 Abstract Pietilä, L. 2020. Contaminated and Scarred: An Exploration in the Landscapes and Narratives of the Anthropocene. Uppsala, Dept of Archaeology and Ancient History. In this thesis, I explore and analyse narratives around toxic and scarred landscapes. The aim of the thesis is to understand human views and experiences of anthropogenic environments through nar- ratives of contamination and toxicity. Some concepts used throughout the thesis are landscape, heritage, ghost, and trauma. The research is situated in the transdisciplinary field of environmental history and utilises multidisciplinary academic research, art works, and several different media outlets as sources of data. Many brief examples of toxic sites are given along the way to demon- strate discussed themes in practice, but two specific landscapes are explored in detail. These are Bikini Atoll in Marshall Islands, an island remaining radioactive to date due to Cold War era weapon testing, and the town of Teckomatorp in Sweden, a remediated site of a chemical industry scandal. Furthermore, an academic environmental justice project Toxic Bios (KTH, Stockholm) is analysed as a medium of narrative creation and several visual artists’ works are brought up along- side news articles and cinematography. This thesis is an exploratory journey and it aspires to con- tribute to bridging academic disciplines as well as encouraging expression of individual stories and subjective viewpoints in narrations of scarred landscapes. Findings of the thesis link to previ- ous research on landscapes as experienced and temporal – toxic landscapes are narrated constantly through many perceptions, storylines, and branches of research. Some reoccurring themes are sick- ness, environmental justice, tensions between local and global levels of narration, fascinating but controversial depictions of toxicity’s aesthetics and individual experiences of dramatic pasts in non-dramatic present. Individual stories, counter-hegemonic narratives, and transdisciplinary practices are needed in order to create deeper understanding of living in the Anthropocene. Keywords: Landscape, Contamination, Toxicity, Narrative, Environmental Justice, Ecology, Vis- uality, Bikini Atoll, Teckomatorp. Master’s thesis in Global Environmental History (45 credits), supervisor: Anneli Ekblom, De- fended and approved spring term 2020-05-29 © Laura Pietilä Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Box 626, 75126 Uppsala, Sweden 2 Acknowledgments Writing this thesis has taught me much more than how to explore narratives of toxic landscapes. It has been a project taking longer than I expected, but fortunately I have not gone through it alone. I want to express my sincere thanks to those who have helped me along the way. First, I want to thank my supervisor Anneli Ekblom for providing me with insightful comments, guidance, and encouragement not only during the writing of this thesis, but throughout these two years studying in the Global Environmental History master’s program. I have much appreciated the support and time you have put into this process. Secondly, I want to thank my colleagues and friends, especially Franklin and Eleanor, for being there and sharing this journey in Uppsala with me. I don’t think I could have done it without you. Finally, thank you to my family who always support me no matter what. 3 Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 5 1.1. Finding the boundaries ...................................................................................................................... 6 1.2. Pursuing narratives and landscapes of toxicity ................................................................................. 6 2. Landscape, Heritage, and Narratives ........................................................................................................ 8 2.1 Places and Landscapes ....................................................................................................................... 8 2.2. Heritage ............................................................................................................................................. 9 2.3. Narrative .......................................................................................................................................... 11 2.4. Time and Trauma ............................................................................................................................ 12 3. Defining toxic landscapes ....................................................................................................................... 14 3.1. The instrumental definition and remediation .................................................................................. 14 3.2. Waste and Toxification of landscapes ............................................................................................. 16 3.3. Ghosts and trauma ........................................................................................................................... 18 3.4. Memory and loss ............................................................................................................................. 20 3.5. The most Ironic Natural Areas ........................................................................................................ 21 4. The contradiction: The Bikini island ...................................................................................................... 24 4.1. Local and global memory ................................................................................................................ 24 4.2. Nuclear Kitsch ................................................................................................................................. 26 4.3. Coral reefs and sunken warships ..................................................................................................... 27 4.4. A Fabulated Eden ............................................................................................................................ 27 4.5. Visions of Anthropogenic futures ................................................................................................... 29 5. The imagery of toxic landscapes: press, media, and art .......................................................................... 31 5.1. The narrative power of Images ........................................................................................................ 31 5.2. Toxic art .......................................................................................................................................... 33 5.3. Press on contamination .................................................................................................................... 35 5.4. Representation in film and documentary ......................................................................................... 37 6. Living in a damaged landscape: Teckomatorp ....................................................................................... 42 6.1. Historical background and contamination context .......................................................................... 42 6.2. Monica’s story ................................................................................................................................. 43 6.2. After the Scandal ............................................................................................................................. 44 6.3. A Scarred Landscape ....................................................................................................................... 45 7. Remediation through narrative: The Toxic Bios project......................................................................... 48 7.1. Space for counter-hegemony ........................................................................................................... 48 7.2 Stories of agency .............................................................................................................................. 50 7.3 A crossroads of toxic discussion ...................................................................................................... 52 8. The unknown destination ................................................................................................................... 54 References ................................................................................................................................................... 56 4 1. Introduction This thesis started from a sudden moment of realisation, from seeing a pattern between several different cultural products and news pieces I had encountered within the past year. In November 2018, I visited an art gallery in Berlin featuring a photography exhibition on Bikini Atoll’s radio- active landscape and heritage of the past. Not so long after, I had a conversation with friends about a news article on recent issues concerning the placement of contaminated wastewater from cooling down the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima following the 2011 earthquake. With this expe- rience and conversation in mind, I was watching the HBO television series Chernobyl, released in 2019, retelling the nuclear accident from 1986. (Japan Times 2019; Berlinische