Militarized Excess: Aesthetics of U.S. Waste in Laos

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Abstract

In Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination, cultural anthropologist Ann Stoler calls attention to “imperial ruination” as “more than a process that sloughs off debris as a by-product, [but] also a political project that lays waste to certain peoples, relations, and things that accumulate in specific places.” Heeding Stoler’s call, this paper examines how U.S. military waste in Laos can shed light on the enduring qualities and multifarious ways waste exceeds Cold War logics of total destruction and elimination. During the U.S. secret war in Laos, more than three billion tons of waste was dumped in the country. Forty years later, it is not difficult to trace the violence of the U.S. secret war that bears on the material environment – the accumulation of war debris, ongoing degradation, and the presence of 80 million unexploded ordnance are a disturbing reminder that there is no aftermath in Laos. By attending to military waste as an active process that occupies “multiple historical tenses” – the violence carried out during the U.S. secret war, the ongoing and lingering effects and affects that permeate the present, and the uncertain future for those who must go on from a place of violence and misery – I suggests Laotians’ resistance to the catastrophe of war points to their imagination and innovative ways of imbuing value to the disruptive qualities of military waste.

Author

• Davorn Sisavath, University of California, San Diego (CA)