Book Section
Goats remain the most viable livestock in the warzone of South Lebanon because of their compatibility with wartime environments and ordnance. They can survive periods of scarcity during active war, occupations, or invasions by foraging for food and eating almost anything. Most crucially, goats are small and light and can graze in the borderland’s many minefields without setting off the hidden explosives designed to kill humans, who are not as light-footed. In this essay, Munira Khayyat explores how an enduring, explosive military technology is both domesticated and resisted by a homegrown, anti-mine survival assemblage.
Keywords: Borderland; Goats; Minefields; South Lebanon; War
Rights: © by the author(s). Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Part of War-torn Ecologies, An-Archic Fragments Containing:
Foreword / Françoise Vergès
War-torn Ecologies: Human and More-​​than-​Human Intersections of Ethnography and the Arts / Umut Yıldırım
Mulberry Affects: Ecology, Memory, and Aesthetics on the Shores of the Tigris River in the Wake of Genocide / Umut Yıldırım
Who’s Afraid of Ideology? / Marwa Arsanios
Note the Ghosts: Among the More-than-Living in Iraq / Kali Rubaii
Great Sand: Grains of Occupation and Representation / Nadine Hattom
Hide Your Water from the Sun: A Performance for Spirited Waters / Jumana Emil Abboud
Of Goats and Bombs: How to Live (and Die) in an Explosive Landscape
Title
Of Goats and Bombs
Subtitle
How to Live (and Die) in an Explosive Landscape
Author(s)
Munira Khayyat
Identifier
https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-27_7
Description
Goats remain the most viable livestock in the warzone of South Lebanon because of their compatibility with wartime environments and ordnance. They can survive periods of scarcity during active war, occupations, or invasions by foraging for food and eating almost anything. Most crucially, goats are small and light and can graze in the borderland’s many minefields without setting off the hidden explosives designed to kill humans, who are not as light-footed. In this essay, Munira Khayyat explores how an enduring, explosive military technology is both domesticated and resisted by a homegrown, anti-mine survival assemblage.
Is Part Of
War-torn Ecologies, An-Archic Fragments
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
19 September 2023
Subject
Borderland
Goats
Minefields
South Lebanon
War
Rights
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Language
en-GB
page start
139
page end
166
Source
War-torn Ecologies, An-Archic Fragments: Reflections from the Middle East, ed. by Umut Yıldırım, Cultural Inquiry, 27 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 139–66

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Cite as: Munira Khayyat, ‘Of Goats and Bombs: How to Live (and Die) in an Explosive Landscape’, in War-torn Ecologies, An-Archic Fragments: Reflections from the Middle East, ed. by Umut Yıldırım, Cultural Inquiry, 27 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 139-66 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-27_7>