Technology and Empire in the Nuclear Age: A Global and Local History of Uranium Mining

第二次世界大战后，关于核时代的公开讨论引发了决裂：无论是好是坏，核技术已经永远改变了世界。对于日渐衰弱的殖民强国来说，另一场决裂迫在眉睫：帝国的丧失。带着矛盾的目光看着美国，英国和法国领导人开始辩称，国际力量不再依赖于帝国主义，而是依赖于核力量。自那以后的半个世纪里，拥有国家核计划一直是现代性的象征。但是，全球核能发展对当地社区意味着什么？核技术如何塑造了发展中国家和核大国之间的关系？铀矿开采的历史表明，殖民主义及其复杂的动态是核时代技术和地缘政治成功的核心。广岛铀来自刚果。英国与非洲的铀供应区有着殖民关系。铀帮助澳大利亚和南非与西方的防御结盟。法国可以寻求独立的核计划，部分原因是其非洲殖民地的储备。内部殖民动态也起到了作用，因为在土著部落土地上发现了矿藏。铀在南非和今天的纳米比亚之间的新殖民关系中发挥了关键作用。铀的历史使人们可以看到在核叙事中经常被忽视的参与者：马达加斯加实验室技术人员、加蓬地形测量员、纳米比亚推土机司机、南非矿石分选工、美洲原住民竖井沉降器和土著土地所有者。该项目通过从全球、地方和比较的角度探索铀矿开采作为一系列相互作用的技术、政治和文化实践的历史，为核时代提供了一个新的视角。它侧重于四个关键地区：法语非洲；北美原住民；澳大利亚原住民领土；纳米比亚和南非。该项目从20世纪40年代末持续到80年代末。铀矿开采技术和实践如何反映和塑造这些地区的政治、社会和文化关系？这些区域以什么方式和在多大程度上联系在一起？该项目在每个铀矿场的直接地方和国家范围内对其进行调查。它考察了每个地点如何融入由原子能机构、公司和其他相关机构组成的国际网络。它通过以下方式探索人员、技术、知识和实践的流通：矿场、跨国公司、国家和国际原子能机构、当地和国际技术培训计划以及当地和跨国活动组织。该项目重塑了我们对冷战中最重要的技术之一如何成为全球技术的理解，并深入探索了这种全球影响的本地层面。通过研究铀公司将自己定位为发展工具的不同方式，以及当地人对这种定位的反应，该项目揭示了发展的意义随着时间和地点的变化。通过关注技术培训方案以及环境和社会影响研究的出现，研究表明它们的方法和意义各不相同，从而为评估此类方案和研究的使用提供了重要的框架。最后，它对铀的关注有助于理解核材料的扩散。在所有这些领域，该项目提供的历史视角阐明了技术政治进程的长期命运，并可能为思考新政策提供框架。

After World War II, public discourse about the nuclear age invoked rupture: for better or worse, nuclear technology had changed the world forever. For the weakening colonial powers, another rupture loomed: the loss of empire. With an ambivalent eye on the U.S., British and French leaders began to argue that international power no longer rested on imperialism, but on nuclear might. For the half-century since then, possessing a national nuclear program has been a symbol of modernity. But what has global nuclear development meant for local communities? How have nuclear technologies shaped relationships between developing nations and nuclear powers? The history of uranium mining shows that colonialism and its complex dynamics were central to the technological and geopolitical success of the nuclear age. Hiroshima uranium came from the Congo. Britain had colonial ties to uranium-supplying regions in Africa. Uranium helped Australia and South Africa to ally themselves with the defense of the West. France could pursue an independent nuclear program partly because of reserves in its African colonies. Internal colonial dynamics figured too, as deposits were found on native tribal lands. And uranium played a key role in new colonial relationships between South Africa and present-day Namibia. Uranium's history makes visible actors often ignored in nuclear narratives: Malagasy lab technicians, Gabonese topographers, Namibian bulldozer drivers, South African ore sorters, Native American shaft sinkers, and Aboriginal landowners. This project offers a new perspective on the nuclear age by exploring the history of uranium mining as a set of interacting technological, political, and cultural practices in global, local, and comparative perspective. It focuses on four key zones: Francophone Africa; native lands in North America; Australian Aboriginal territories; and Namibia and South Africa. The project runs from the late 1940s to the late 1980s. How did the technologies and practices of uranium mining reflect and shape political, social, and cultural relationships in each of these zones? In what ways and to what extent were these zones linked? The project investigates each uranium mining site in its immediate local and national context. It examines how each site fit into an international network of atomic energy agencies, corporations, and other related institutions. And it explores the circulation of people, technologies, knowledge, and practices through: mining sites, multinational corporations, national and international atomic energy institutions, local and international technical training programs, and local and trans-national activist organizations. The project reshapes our understanding of how one of the most significant technologies of the Cold War became global, and explores in depth the local dimensions of that global reach. By examining the different ways that uranium companies positioned themselves as instruments of development and the ways that locals responded to that positioning, the project illuminates the changing meaning of development over time and place. By attending to the emergence of technical training programs and environmental and social impact studies, the research shows variance in their methods and meanings, thereby offering important frameworks through which to assess the use of such programs and studies. Finally, its focus on uranium contributes to an understanding of the proliferation of nuclear materials. In all these domains, the historical perspective offered by this project illuminates the long-term fate of technopolitical processes and may suggest frameworks for thinking about new policies.