Projected Futures: The Political Matter of UK Higher Activity Radioactive Waste

Abstract

This paper identifi es, and works from, the technoconceptual as a site of intervention for a politics of stuff . Its case is radioactive waste: specifi cally, UK higher activity wastes (HAW) and the policy future of a UK Deep Geological Disposal Facility (DGF). The paper proceeds through three steps. It charts, fi rst, the unravelling of HAW as onto-politics through the democratisation of technoscience, showing that, as the gap between stuff and politics has opened, HAW's future in a DGF has become the preserve of science-technical discourses (currently geology and engineered design). Secondly, it joins with the undone-science traditions of STS (science, technology, and society), to critique existing technoscientifi c conceptualisations of a DGF and to anticipate a future in which a DGF is abandoned. Third, and in response to abandonment, it proposes a diff erent future for a DGF. This starts from thinking radioactive waste as 'thing power' but argues that, for a DGF to be materialised in ways that forge attachments with publics, requires a turn to material culture. More broadly, the paper argues that furthering ontopolitics requires keeping the demos alive to stuff 's vitality. This means engaging in political settlements of technoscientifi c controversies; with old, or established, technologies, and 'cold' politics; and in politics as practised.

Dis/appearing waste and afterwards

“…In fact, waste is recently increasingly being understood relationally, thus provoking discussion about waste-related concepts. Gregson andCrang (2010, p. 1027) discuss how waste is far from being pre-determinable: it is historically mutable and geographically contingent, as well as both expressing social values and sustaining them. Gille (2010Gille ( , p. 1050) defines waste as any matter one has failed to use, following the notion by Bulkeley and Gregson (2009) of waste as surplus material.…”

“…For practical research and management purposes, waste often remains simply defined and without interrogation or problematization. Objects and matter (stuff) are seen as stabilized and the focus of humancentered politics, although Gregson (2012Gregson ( , pp. 2006Gregson ( -2007 points out that matter (such as waste) is an active participant in politics.…”

Charting Disaster Recovery via Google Street View: A Social Science Perspective on Challenges Raised by the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

“…Much of the literature on the value of GSV for auditing environments necessarily emphasizes visual characteristics such as the decay of the built environment (Odgers et al 2012), roadside signage (Less et al 2015), or large species (Rousselet et al 2013) by virtue of the nature and limitations of GSV. This clearly has potential to be problematic for using GSV to assess a post-nuclear accident landscape, since radiation is invisible (Pezullo and Depoe 2010) and requires access to specialist technologies to make its presence ''visible'' (Gregson 2012). A key question to address is thus how effective visual ''proxies'' for radioactive contamination may be within GSV as a means of understanding the nature of contamination.…”

“…Radioactivity has the potential to rupture the integrity of all that comes into contact with it (Gregson 2012) and in sufficient doses or quantities is lethally dangerous (Nakamura and Kikuchi 2011). Because cesium nuclides corresponding to the accident have been detected at every location surveyed after the Fukushima accident (Saito et al 2015), by definition the area can be considered a landscape of risk that has been ''exposed to radioactive contamination'' (Blowers 1999, p. 241).…”

Place and Defilement

“…Particularly vocal among these voices have been anti-racist and materialist geographers, whose empirical research into topics ranging from national belonging to industrial waste have emphasised the significance of the topic (e.g. Hawkins 2003, Edensor 2010Krupar 2011;Gidwani & Reddy 2011;Jewitt 2011;Gregson 2012). Philo (2012: 662) has also emphasised the significance of purity and impurity in teaching geography, as students become caught up in questions regarding why and when particular bodies 'contaminate' or 'render impure' the spaces they occupy.…”