Queer Times and Chemical Weapons, Suspended in the Gotland Deep
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33363Keywords:
Baltic Sea, chemical weapons, mustard gas, queer time, temporalityAbstract
Following World War II, between 2000 and 10,000 metric tonnes of chemical weapons,mostly mustard gas, were dumped in the Gotland Basin of the Baltic Sea. This articleexplores these dumps as a dense transfer point for many different, sometimes incommensurabletemporalities. Guided by queer theories of nonlinear temporality, I describethese sulphur mustard times as both making and being made by the materialities of thechemicals, their containers, the bodies with which they come into contact and the sea.These knots of temporalities articulate militarisms and environmentalisms in a tangle ofmultiple pasts and possible futures.
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Available online: http://sfonline.barnard.edu/life-un-ltd-feminism-bioscience-race/distributed-reproduction-chemical-violence-and-latency/
Nixon, R. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061194
Schofield, J. and M. Anderton. 2000. “The Queer Archaeology of Green Gate: Interpreting Contested Space at Greenham Common Airbase.” World Archaeology 32 (2): 236–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240050131216
Barrat, J. 2015. “Old Bombs, Chemical Weapons Now Home for Deep-Sea Starfish.” Smithsonian Insider, 31 July. Available online: http://insider.si.edu/2015/07/old-bombs-chemical-weapons-now-home-for-deep-sea-starfish/
Barthes, R. 1984. Mythologies. Translated by A. Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang.
Be?dowski, J., Z. Klusek, M. Szubska, R. Turja, A. I. Bulczak, D. Rak, M. Brenner, T. Lang, L. Kotwicki, K. Grzelak, J. Jakacki. N. Fricke, A. Östin, U. Olsson, J. Fabisiak, G. Garnaga, J. Rattfelt Nyholm, P. Majewski, K. Broeg, M. Söderström, P. Vanninen, S. Popielj, J. Nawa?a, K. Lehtonen, R. Berglind and B. Schmidt. 2016. “Chemical Munitions Search and Assessment: An Evaluation of the Dumped Munitions Problem in the Baltic Sea.” Deep-Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 128: 85–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.01.017
Blackmore, C. 2011. “How to Queer the Past Without Sex: Queer Theory, Feminisms and the Archaeology of Identity.” Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 7 (1): 75–96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-011-9157-9
Carstensen, J., J. H. Andersen, B. G. Gustafsson and D. J. Conley. 2014. “Deoxygenation of the Baltic Sea During the Last Century.” PNAS 111 (15): 5628–5633. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1323156111
Catts, O. with K. O’Reilly, A. Gracie, L. Beloff, K. High, A. Neimanis and A. Tenetz. 2013. “Journey to the Post-Anthropogenic.” Field_Notes – Deep Time. Finnish Bioart Society Bioart Project. Available online: https://bioartsociety.fi/projects/field-notes-deep-time/pages/journey-to-the-post-anthropogenic
CHEMSEA. 2013. CHEMSEA Findings: Results from the CHEMSEA Project – Chemical Munitions Search and Assessment. Available online: http://www.chemsea.eu/admin/uploaded/CHEMSEA%20Findings.pdf
Chen, C. 2013. “Mapping Waters: Thinking with Watery Places.” In Thinking of Water, edited by C. Chen, J. MacLeod and A. Neimanis. 274–298. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
Croucher, K. 2005 “Queerying Near Eastern Archaeology.” World Archaeology 37 (4): 610–620. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240500418664
Cvetkovich, A. 2003. An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public Cultures. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822384434
Davis, H. 2015. “Toxic Progeny: The Plastisphere and other Queer Futures.” philoSOPHIA 5 (2015): 231–250.
Davis, M. 2002. Dead Cities. New York: The New Press.
Dowson, T. 2000. “Why Queer Archaeology? An Introduction.” World Archaeology 32 (2): 161–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240050131144
Economist. 2013. “The Ticking Time-Bomb at the Bottom of the Baltic Sea.” 21 November. Available online: http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/11/baltic-sea
Euronews. 2014. “Troubled Waters: The Hidden Legacy of Chemical Weapons Dumping.” 21 February. Available online: http://www.euronews.com/2014/02/21/troubled-waters-the-hidden-legacy-of-chemical-weapons-dumping
Foucault, M. 1990 [1976]. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Translated by R. Hurley. New York: Penguin.
Freeman, E. 2010. Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393184
Greenberg, M. I., K. J. Sexton and D. Vearrier. 2016. “Sea-Dumped Chemical Weapons: Environmental Risk, Occupational Hazard.” Clinical Toxicology 54 (2): 79–91. https://doi.org/10.3109/15563650.2015.1121272
Hellstrom, T. and M. Odalen. 2013. Long-Time Behaviour of Mustard Gas Dumped in the Bornholm Basin. BOX-WIN Technical Report 6. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Helmreich, S. 2009. Alien Ocean. Boston: MIT Press.
Hoenig, S. 2007. Compendium of Chemical Warfare Agents. Berlin: Springer.
International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions. 2016. “About Us.” Available online: http://underwatermunitions.org/about-us/
Lepparanta, M. and K. Myrberg. 2009. Physical Oceanography of the Baltic Sea. Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79703-6
Love, H. 2007. Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lucas, G. 2005. The Archeology of Time. London and New York: Routledge.
MacLeod, J. 2013. “Water and the Material Imagination: Reading the Sea of Memory against the Flows of Capital.” In Thinking of Water, edited by C. Chen, J. MacLeod and A. Neimanis, 40–60. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
McGlade, J. 1999. “The Times of History: Archaeology, Narrative and Non-Linear Causality.” In Time and Archaeology, edited by T. Murray, 139–163. London and New York: Routledge.
Mentz, S. 2009. “Toward a Blue Cultural Studies: The Sea, Maritime Culture, and Early Modern English Literature.” Literature Compass 6 (5): 997–1013. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00655.x
Missiaen, T. and J. P. Henriet (eds). 2002. Chemical Munition Dump Sites in Coastal Environments. Brussels: Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs, Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Public Health and the Environment.
Moreaus, C., B.-M. Bäcklin, A. Neimanis and A. Östin. 2015/2016. Nya sårskador hos säl – koppling till kemiska stridsmedel?” In HAVET 2015/2016: Om miljötillståndet i svenska havsområden, edited by Havsmiljöinstitutet [Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment], 113–115. Gothenburg, Sweden: Havsmiljöinstitutet.
Murphy, M. 2013. “Distributed Reproduction, Chemical Violence and Latency.” S&F Online 11 (3).
Available online: http://sfonline.barnard.edu/life-un-ltd-feminism-bioscience-race/distributed-reproduction-chemical-violence-and-latency/
Nixon, R. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061194
Schofield, J. and M. Anderton. 2000. “The Queer Archaeology of Green Gate: Interpreting Contested Space at Greenham Common Airbase.” World Archaeology 32 (2): 236–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240050131216
Published
2018-06-04
Issue
Section
Research Article
How to Cite
Neimanis, A. (2018). Queer Times and Chemical Weapons, Suspended in the Gotland Deep. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 5(1), 66-78. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33363
