Description
This paper uses the framework of “unintended sacrifice zones” to explore the shifting intersections between increased natural hazard events, such as wildfires and floods, and the challenges to the removal of unexploded ordinance (UXO), such as landmines. “Unintended sacrifice zone” to highlight the ways in which—often rural—landscapes are left to hold the military waste of UXO until funding becomes available. In other words, this is a protracted situation of living with and in landscapes filled with explosives. I begin with a case study in Bosnia-Herzegovina and, in doing so, bring to attention the issue of legacy explosives, or those that have been in the ground for years after a conflict has ended. I then zoom out to consider the logics of removal that are developing in conversation with intensifying natural hazard events. Through this approach, I build a case for understanding unintentional sacrifice zones as places of hope and inspiration for living with the consequences of climate change and military violence.
