Bomb children : life in the former battlefields of Laos
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Bibliographic Information
Bomb children : life in the former battlefields of Laos
Duke University Press, 2019
- : hardcover
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [155]-163) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Half a century after the CIA's Secret War in Laos-the largest bombing campaign in history-explosive remnants of war continue to be part of people's everyday lives. In Bomb Children Leah Zani offers a perceptive analysis of the long-term, often subtle, and unintended effects of massive air warfare. Zani traces the sociocultural impact of cluster submunitions-known in Laos as "bomb children"-through stories of explosives clearance technicians and others living and working in these old air strike zones. Zani presents her ethnography alongside poetry written in the field, crafting a startlingly beautiful analysis of state terror, authoritarian revival, rapid development, and ecological contamination. In so doing, she proposes that postwar zones are their own cultural and area studies, offering new ways to understand the parallel relationship between ongoing war violence and postwar revival.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Note on the Lao Language ix
Fieldpoem 30: Postwar 1
Introduction: The Fruit Eaters 3
Fieldpoem 11: The Fruit Eaters 36
1. The Dragon and the River 37
Fieldpoem 15: "The Rice Is More Delicious after Bomb Clearance" 64
2. Ghost Mine 65
Fieldpoem 23: Blast Radius 97
3. Blast Radius 98
Fieldpoem 26: House Blessings 130
Conclusion: Phaseout 131
Fieldpoem 18: Children 149
Appendix: Notes on Fieldpoems 151
References 155
Index 165
by "Nielsen BookData"