24
C. W. Ayre et al.
Fig. 2.2 Bikini Atoll, Micronesia: Nuclear test “Baker”, conducted by the United States military
on 25 July 1946 (Source U.S. Department of Defense; Library of Congress: https://memory.loc.
gov/master/pnp/cph/3b10000/3b13000/3b13500/3b13566u.tif)
The imagined cultural inferiority of the Bikinians and their supposed weak attachment to
Bikini were used by the U.S. military as legitimization for their removal from their atoll.
[With] a focus on its nonplace attributes, Bikini was represented as a marginalized place.
(pp. 614–615)
According to Martin (2018), “Marshall Islanders suffered forced relocations, destruction of ancestral lands, and radiation sickness” (p. 581). The long-term adverse consequences of forced Bikinian islander relocations reverberate through the decades to
this day (Dibblin 1998; Barker 2013, 2017), as exemplified by statements made by a
Bikini councillor; “As a result of being displaced we’ve lost our cultural heritage—our
traditional customs and skills, which for thousands of years were passed down from
generation to generation” (AFP 2014, para. 8). Research elsewhere in the Pacific has
documented the strong attachment of atoll islanders to their ancestral lands (Luetz
and Havea 2018; Farbotko 2019).
With each nuclear blast, “paradise” (Davis 2005) progressively morphed and
mutated into what Gwynne (2012) has termed “Paradise With an Asterisk”. “Today,
three-quarters of a century after the Bikini Atoll test by the United States, the people of
that once beautiful coral paradise remain displaced or physically scarred” (Bhagwan
2020, para. 12). Importantly, it seems that what was primarily ‘proven’ in the so-called
‘Pacific Proving Grounds’ was that the Pacific Islands were considered ‘expendable’
and that their primary raison d’être existed (in the eyes of their nuclear colonialists)
in ‘validating’ the efficacy of modern weaponry. This utilitarian appropriation of the
Pacific is reminiscent of what Farbotko (2010) has argued in relation to,
[t]he emergence of Tuvalu as a climate change ‘canary’ … a location where developed world
anxieties about global climate change are articulated … Expressions of ‘wishful sinking’
create a problematic moral geography … only after they disappear are the islands useful as
C. W. Ayre et al.
Fig. 2.2 Bikini Atoll, Micronesia: Nuclear test “Baker”, conducted by the United States military
on 25 July 1946 (Source U.S. Department of Defense; Library of Congress: https://memory.loc.
gov/master/pnp/cph/3b10000/3b13000/3b13500/3b13566u.tif)
The imagined cultural inferiority of the Bikinians and their supposed weak attachment to
Bikini were used by the U.S. military as legitimization for their removal from their atoll.
[With] a focus on its nonplace attributes, Bikini was represented as a marginalized place.
(pp. 614–615)
According to Martin (2018), “Marshall Islanders suffered forced relocations, destruction of ancestral lands, and radiation sickness” (p. 581). The long-term adverse consequences of forced Bikinian islander relocations reverberate through the decades to
this day (Dibblin 1998; Barker 2013, 2017), as exemplified by statements made by a
Bikini councillor; “As a result of being displaced we’ve lost our cultural heritage—our
traditional customs and skills, which for thousands of years were passed down from
generation to generation” (AFP 2014, para. 8). Research elsewhere in the Pacific has
documented the strong attachment of atoll islanders to their ancestral lands (Luetz
and Havea 2018; Farbotko 2019).
With each nuclear blast, “paradise” (Davis 2005) progressively morphed and
mutated into what Gwynne (2012) has termed “Paradise With an Asterisk”. “Today,
three-quarters of a century after the Bikini Atoll test by the United States, the people of
that once beautiful coral paradise remain displaced or physically scarred” (Bhagwan
2020, para. 12). Importantly, it seems that what was primarily ‘proven’ in the so-called
‘Pacific Proving Grounds’ was that the Pacific Islands were considered ‘expendable’
and that their primary raison d’être existed (in the eyes of their nuclear colonialists)
in ‘validating’ the efficacy of modern weaponry. This utilitarian appropriation of the
Pacific is reminiscent of what Farbotko (2010) has argued in relation to,
[t]he emergence of Tuvalu as a climate change ‘canary’ … a location where developed world
anxieties about global climate change are articulated … Expressions of ‘wishful sinking’
create a problematic moral geography … only after they disappear are the islands useful as