“The Ocean is Our Legacy:” Values of Care and Reciprocity

ABSTRACT

This essay examines contemporary nuclear and military impacts on the Pacific Ocean and environmental destruction perpetuated by Japan and the United States. It weaves together complex and overlapping histories of militarism that continue ecological violence in the Pacific, and it articulates connections among these legacies in local and global contexts. I argue that communication scholars must stop acquiescing to military security perspectives. Instead, scholars should directly condemn militaries as the world’s biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and critique nuclear weapon states that exacerbate environmental devastation. Considering the 2023 cases of Fukushima–Daiichi radioactive wastewater dumping and Super Typhoon Mawar, I examine Indigenous cultural practices of care as responses from island communities in Micronesia and their diasporas.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate justice
• military
• nuclear
• Pacific Ocean
• Indigenous

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by American Council of Learned Societies.