Paper short abstract:

When toxic industrial waste flows freely into Bosnian rivers, citizens protect themselves, but see disaster as unavoidable. I show what it means to live adjacent to disaster, analyzing the syncopated temporalities of ecological destruction, political activism, and anthropological critique.

Paper long abstract:

"When Igman employs, Konjic lives," say Bosnian newspapers testifying to the success of an ammunition factory on whose global trade hinges the survival of an entire region. In a country with one of Europe's and world's highest unemployment rates, the ammunition factory and its now privatized former subsidiaries are understood as beacons of hope. But what does it mean for a town to live when the very source of its livelihood is doubly lethal? Toxic spilling of industrial waste into the river, erstwhile invisible, has material effects that produce strong affects. The fish are gone, complain the downstream fishermen. The crabs are dead, say the farmers. Do you remember when we could swim in the river, ask the town residents. The sights and smells of poisoned water signal danger, and citizens are protecting themselves by averting it, by avoiding contact. Embittered about the wanton ecological destruction, many also critique the predatory political class, but the presence of danger and the gradually unfolding disaster are seen as unavoidable. Disaster is to be lived with, not prevented, and they are well-schooled in living adjacent to disaster. I show what it means to live adjacent to disaster in the context of protracted precarity and post-war environmental deregulation, and take this analysis as a point of departure for theorizing the syncopated temporalities of disaster, political activism, and anthropological critique.