Professor Nicola Gregson nicky.gregson@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor
Projected futures: the political matter of UK higher activity radioactive waste
Gregson, N.
Authors
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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