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

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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.