Issue |
SHS Web Conf.
Volume 136, 2022
MATTERS OF CONTAINMENT. Material approaches to the handling of threats in the modern world. 3rd International Conference of the Quarantine Studies Network (QSN)
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Article Number | 01001 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Nuclear-Chemical Containment | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202213601001 | |
Published online | 22 March 2022 |
Non-radioactive but nuclear? Containment and circulation of wastes from the French nuclear tests in Polynesia
Associate Professor of Geography, University of Haute-Alsace, France
Beside Moruroa and Fangataufa, the two atolls where atomic bombs were detonated, the conduction of the French nuclear tests from 1966 to 1995 in Polynesia required the deployment of infrastructure throughout the whole archipelago. Their gradual decommissioning until the early 2010s produced massive volumes of wastes scattered through different islands. While being mainly non-radioactive but chemically polluted, the management and circulation of these materials, mainly consisting of gravels and soils, is currently stopped due to their perceived “nuclearity” (Hecht, 2012). Building on a case study developed in the atoll of Hao, which hosted the nuclear tests’ support base, this paper offers to document how these non-radioactive materials are defined as nuclear, thus confining their circulation. Results show that these wastes’ “nuclearity” results from their integration on multi-level conflicts.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2022
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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