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Projected futures: the political matter of UK higher activity radioactive waste

Gregson, N.

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Abstract

This paper identifies, and works from, the technoconceptual as a site of intervention for a politics of stuff. Its case is radioactive waste: specifically, 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, first, 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 technoscientific conceptualisations of a DGF and to anticipate a future in which a DGF is abandoned. Third, and in response to abandonment, it proposes a different 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 onto-politics requires keeping the demos alive to stuff’s vitality. This means engaging in political settlements of technoscientific controversies; with old, or established, technologies, and ‘cold’ politics; and in politics as practised.

Citation

Gregson, N. (2012). Projected futures: the political matter of UK higher activity radioactive waste. Environment and Planning A, 44(8), 2006-2022. https://doi.org/10.1068/a44600

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 2012
Deposit Date Mar 9, 2012
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Environment and Planning A
Print ISSN 0308-518X
Electronic ISSN 1472-3409
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 44
Issue 8
Pages 2006-2022
DOI https://doi.org/10.1068/a44600
Keywords Radioactive waste, Materiality, Deep geological disposal, Onto-politics, UK

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Copyright Statement
Gregson N., 2012, The definitive peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Environment and Planning A 44(8) 2006–2022, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a44600




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