ABSTRACT
The practice of contemporary warfare seems to be plagued by scandal. It is often assumed that the act of bearing witness to these moments of ethical failure, in which the relationship between the martial and the ethical breaks down, plays an important role in holding powerful actors to account for their conduct. Considerable faith has been placed in the role of transparency and truth-telling as foundations for normative engagements with war. This article argues that we must be cautious about this investment. Drawing on the work of Jean Baudrillard, this article offers a method for critically reading scandals as a series of line-drawing manoeuvres. Taken together, these manoeuvres demonstrate how scandals function to enable, excuse and obscure the complex landscapes of violence that define the spectacular and mundane sites of contemporary war. Reducing critical engagements with violent practices to a logic of recrimination, scandals often function to revitalise the very principles they appear to contest. Focusing upon the socio-political implications of wartime scandals, this article demonstrates that the performative force of scandals is therefore the reproduction of a violent status quo rather than opening up new spaces for imagining less violent futures. Offering a critical reading of controversies relating to the provision of humanitarian assistance and education in Afghanistan, this article reflects on the ambiguities and anxieties of critiquing violence.
ABSTRACT
Based on the transient exposure of Chesapeake Bay sediments to hydrocarbons and the metabolic versatility of known anaerobic alkane-degrading microorganisms, it was hypothesized that distinct Bay sediment communities, governed by geochemical gradients, would have intrinsic alkane-utilizing potential under sulfate-reducing and/or methanogenic conditions. Sediment cores were collected along a transect of the Bay. Community DNA was interrogated via pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes, PCR of anaerobic hydrocarbon activation genes, and qPCR of 16S rRNA genes and genes involved in sulfate reduction/methanogenesis. Site sediments were used to establish microcosms amended with n-hexadecane under sulfate-reducing and methanogenic conditions. Sequencing of 16S rRNA genes indicated that sediments associated with hypoxic water columns contained significantly greater proportions of Bacteria and Archaea consistent with syntrophic degradation of organic matter and methanogenesis compared to less reduced sediments. Microbial taxa frequently associated with hydrocarbon-degrading communities were found throughout the Bay, and the genetic potential for hydrocarbon metabolism was demonstrated via the detection of benzyl-(bssA) and alkylsuccinate synthase (assA) genes. Although microcosm studies did not indicate sulfidogenic alkane degradation, the data suggested that methanogenic conversion of alkanes was occurring. These findings highlight the potential role that anaerobic microorganisms could play in the bioremediation of hydrocarbons in the Bay.
