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

第二次世界大战后，关于核时代的公共话语唤起了决裂：无论好坏，核技术已经永远地改变了世界。对于日渐衰弱的殖民大国来说，另一种决裂正在逼近：帝国的丧失。带着对美国的矛盾看法，英国和法国领导人开始主张，国际力量不再依靠帝国主义，而是依靠核力量。从那以后的半个世纪里，拥有一个国家核项目一直是现代化的象征。但是，全球核能发展对当地社区意味着什么？核技术如何影响发展中国家与核大国之间的关系？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。广岛的铀来自刚果。英国与非洲的铀供应地区有着殖民关系。铀帮助澳大利亚和南非联合起来保卫西方。法国可以寻求独立的核项目，部分原因是其在非洲殖民地的储备。内部的殖民动态也起了作用，因为在土著部落的土地上发现了矿藏。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。铀的历史使一些经常在核叙事中被忽视的角色变得明显：马达加斯加的实验室技术人员、加蓬的地形学家、纳米比亚的推土机司机、南非的矿石分拣工、美洲原住民的竖井挖土机和土著土地所有者。该项目通过探索铀矿开采的历史，从全球、地方和比较的角度探讨了一系列相互作用的技术、政治和文化实践，为核时代提供了一个新的视角。它侧重于四个关键区域：非洲法语区；北美本土；澳大利亚土著领地；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。铀矿开采的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？这些区域以何种方式、在何种程度上相互联系？该项目在当地和全国范围内调查每个铀矿场。它考察了每个站点如何融入原子能机构、公司和其他相关机构的国际网络。它还通过以下途径探索人员、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、地方和国际技术培训项目以及地方和跨国活动组织。该项目重塑了我们对冷战中最重要的技术之一如何变得全球化的理解，并深入探索了全球影响的地方层面。通过考察铀矿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，该项目阐明了随着时间和地点的变化，发展的意义在变化。通过关注技术培训计划和环境与社会影响研究的出现，研究显示了其方法和意义的差异，从而提供了评估这些计划和研究使用情况的重要框架。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，本项目提供的历史观点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.