Ruth Trumble

This project investigates the challenges of humanitarian demining in countries of the former Yugoslavia through the lens of the demining labor, which focuses on removing unexploded ordinance, such as landmines. Humanitarian demining aims to support the health and wellbeing of all who traverse through an area contaminated with such explosives. Using surveys and ethnographic methods, this work explores the relationship between the livelihoods and working conditions for deminers amid global environmental and economic change. These workers have the specific knowledge and expertise necessary to remove explosive remnants of war from the ground, yet funding for such jobs is often inconsistent, which increases precarious livelihoods for the workers and, also, the communities within these suspected hazardous areas.