David Biggs

Small Machines in the Garden: Everyday technology and revolution in the Mekong Delta

Twentieth-century industrialization in the agricultural landscapes of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam took a very different form from other places, characterized less by a continuous spread of large-scale technology than by its destruction in mid-century and the subsequent spread of small technology which powered scooters, water pumps, and boats. The numbers of these portable motors, an everyday technology in 1960, rose from a few thousand units in 1963 to millions in the present day. The colonial and post-colonial state in Vietnam played a key role in the demise of large technology and, ultimately, of the water infrastructure. Its failures during wartime spurred farmers to adopt cheap, small engines to survive; however, the states role was complex during this time. Several key factors, including the influence of American aid programmes and the contributions of Taiwanese agricultural advisers, especially those pushing high-yield rice, favoured the adoption of small engines. From an ecological viewpoint, the post-1960 explosion in the use of small motors, especially as water pumps, has brought people and states in Southeast Asia to an ecological impasse as unrestricted use has impacted on water tables, salinity levels, and the long-term sustainability of agriculture in many places. This paper examines the states indirect role in shaping this silent revolution, and it considers the political and ideological factors underpinning its history.

First evidence of association between past environmental exposure to dioxin and DNA methylation of CYP1A1 and IGF2 genes in present day Vietnamese population

During the Vietnam War, the United States military sprayed over 74 million litres of Agent Orange (AO) to destroy forest cover as a counterinsurgency tactic in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The main ingredient was contaminated by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-paradioxin (TCDD). DNA methylation (DNAm) differences are potential biomarker of environmental toxicants exposure. The aim of this study was to perform a preliminary investigation of the DNAm levels from peripheral blood of the present-day Vietnamese population, including individuals whose parents, according to historical data, were exposed to AO/TCDD during the war. 94 individuals from heavily sprayed areas (cases) and 94 individuals from non-sprayed areas (controls) were studied, and historical data on alleged exposure of parents collected. 94 cases were analysed considering those whose father/parents participated in the war (N = 29) and considering the place of residence of both parents (64 living in sprayed areas versus 30 in non-contaminated areas). DNAm levels in CYP1A1 and IGF2 genes were measured (MALDI-TOF technology). The analyses showed that: 1) one CpG site in the CYP1A1 and one in the IGF2 gene showed significant differences in DNAm levels between cases and controls; 2) the CYP1A1 region resulted to be hypomethylated (in 9 out of 16 sites/units; p-val<0.01) in 29 individuals whose father/parents participated in the war in the spray zones; 3) we showed that the place of residence of both parents influenced methylation levels of the CYP1A1 and IGF2 genes (p-val<0.05). In conclusion this study indicates that past environmental exposure to dioxin (AO/TCDD) shapes the DNAm profile of CYP1A1 and that the place of living for parents in former spray zones influences DNAm of CYP1A1 and IGF2 genes. These results open the way to new applications of DNAm as potential biomarker(s) of past human exposure to dioxin.

On military wetlands

While wetlands have yet to feature prominently in the nascent field of military-environmental history, they have for millennia played a prominent role in acts of conquest and rebellion, and experiences of wetlands have figured prominently in military history. One could write a global history of rebels, pirates, and smugglers in wetlands. In fact, it’s amazing that one hasn’t yet. Jack Hayes’ essay introduces us to perhaps the greatest such epic in the genre, the 14th century Chinese classic novel, Water Margin. In this story, 108 outlaws gather on a hill (Mount Liang) in the Liangshan Marsh and form an army. After fighting the Song Dynasty, they eventually receive amnesty and fight for the Song against foreign invaders. Marshes and swamps, especially before the advent of modern dredges and diesel pumps, occupied a problematic space in the geography of the state. James Scott, in The Art of Not Being Governed (2009), uses the metaphor of friction to explain why civilization did not climb hills. He says the same about river deltas and marshes. These were ‘‘state-resistant spaces’’ on the highest order. Besides Water Margin, Scott gives two other literary classics: Wilfred Thieseger’s The Marsh Arabs (Tigris– Euphrates Delta) and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Dred: A Tale of the Dismal Swamp. (Scott 2009, p. 171) In early 19th century New Orleans, too, a more modern version of the Water Margin tale unfolded. The pirate Jean Laffitte built a smuggling empire that reached from New Orleans and Baton Rouge to the bayous of the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf of Mexico. In return for a pardon from President Andrew Jackson in 1814, Laffitte and his privateers fought on behalf of the United States (Davis 2009, p. 210). In Dylan Cyr’s essay, here we see a very different conceptualization of the water margin as a ‘‘nexus’’ in various American military experiences of the riverine environments on Guadalcanal. American First Marine Division veterans’ accounts of learning to work with the water environment—at least the crocodiles that swam in the rivers—recalls humanist geographer Tuan’s (1977) notion of ‘‘spatial ability’’ (p. 78) and the formation of ideas and memories of place. The soldiers, over time, become river-conscious and depend upon their ‘‘water margins’’ and the crocodiles to survive Japanese military offensives. Such documented combat experiences in wetlands can be found in all periods and places. The first