The New Nuclear Imperialism: Science, Diplomacy and Power in the British Empire

87df7e56-c4fb-4151-8034-5cca3e542698

Active

AHRC
AHRC
AHRC
AHRC
AHRC

£891,780

March 20, 2021

March 19, 2024

Responding in 1960 to the prospect of French nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara, the leader of postcolonial Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, forewarned of a 'new nuclear imperialism' (Allman, 2008; Hill, 2018). The exploitation of foreign lands for uranium mining and the legacies of nuclear testing has ensured the ongoing relevance of Nkrumah's words, both in contemporary charges of 'nuclear neo-colonialism' and in the mobilisation of a worldwide movement towards a nuclear ban treaty (Broinowski, 2015). This research explores how the pursuit of nuclear power by Britain was enmeshed in empire, as well as how this history can be used to engage with current debates about the nuclear order. In doing so, the research is concerned not only with the structural connection between empire and nuclear power - the resources and sites that the British used to procure uranium or test weapons. It is also concerned with imperialism as a knowledge system by which the British nuclear programme was operationalised. In a period regarded as the high point of 'scientific imperialism', this research seeks to show how imperial knowledge informed key decisions and perspectives on where to mine and test, who to affect and involve in these processes and how these could be harnessed and legitimised in international politics (Bennet and Hodge, 2011). The British nuclear programme thus provides a window into imperial thinking about diplomacy, ecology and race at the end of empire.

In order to grasp the role of late imperialism in nuclear history and politics, this project considers nuclear technologies from their production to their potential effects, from the mining of uranium to compensation cases relating to the testing of weapons. In order to grasp imperialism as a distinctive mode of thinking about and acting in the world, the project also invokes methodologies that go beyond state archives and the papers of physicists. The retrieval of myths and folklore, for example, will help to comprehend the relationship between indigenous groups and their land, as well as how mining and testing on that land can be understood as having 'humanitarian impacts'. The project is grounded in five areas, starting with a theorisation of what 'nuclear imperialism' means - and what forms it took - in the context of British and French decolonisation and American internationalism. It goes on to focus on slavery and the global uranium trade in Namibia; diplomatic manoeuvrings around French tests in Algeria and their repercussions for nuclear and non-nuclear alliances; and the significance of non-scientific, non-western perceptions of the nuclear age for rights movements among indigenous groups such as the I-Kiribati in the Pacific. The final part of the project focuses on compensation claims against the British Ministry of Defence by veterans and 'victims' of tests. It uses these to engage more widely with issues of historical injustice, particularly as they have emerged in imperial historiography and the turn towards 'reparatory' histories of colonialism.

These historical links between late imperialism and nuclearity also help to explain challenges to the nuclear order today. To this end, the project will raise awareness and shed light on histories of nuclear imperialism with NGOs that are part of the 'humanitarian initiative' - a movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons among state and non-state actors in the UN. The project will consider the role of these histories in policy debates during the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (or RevCon), which takes place at the UN in 2020. It will do so in tandem with archivists, campaigners, legal and medical specialists and nuclear veterans.

Potential Impact:
The events and outputs of the project are designed to engage - and have an impact on - three communities, all of which have a key stake in the humanitarian initiative against nuclear weapons. These include nuclear veterans in the UK and overseas, campaigners for the abolition of nuclear weapons and citizens in the destinations of the research trips: Accra in Ghana, Suva in Fiji and Windhoek in Namibia. In each of these communities, the project seeks to foster critical reflection on how nuclear and imperial histories have shaped understandings of 'the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons', a phrase often used in contemporary policy debates.

What 'humanitarian impact' means and the political possibilities it opens up are contingent on the experience and framing of the distinctive histories of these communities. In this project, these span across ex-soldiers who carried out nuclear tests, campaigners who draw on traditions of anti-nuclear protest, and the peoples and workers in the margins - those whose livelihoods depend on the remote regions in which mining and testing have taken place.

In order to maximise the potential for impact, the events and one of the major outputs - the open-access project platform and edited volume - will be linked in to one another, thus empowering collaborators to act as co-producers of the research. This will ensure that collaborators are actively invested in the research, an approach that will support not only the diversity and quality of the edited volume, but also its potential to reach target audiences. The events, which includes three workshops and a conference, will feature interactive sessions in which collaborators can donate multimedia content to the open-access project platform hosted by Manifold with University of Minnesota Press (UMP). The multimedia content can then be embedded into the text of the proposed edited volume, which will emerge out of the project platform and the papers of selected speakers at the conference (Nuclear Histories, Humanitarian Impacts). The production of the edited volume will therefore mark the culmination of an open, iterative, process; one in which collaborators can shape, witness and feedback into the evolution of an academic book. This process will conclude when the multimedia texts of the project platform are codified into an open-access work entitled 'Fallout from the Past', which will also be available in print edition.

Project events are designed to resonate not only with the open-access platform and production of the edited volume, but also with the current context of nuclear disarmament in global politics. In particular, the project platform will be launched only months after the NPT Review Conference in May 2020. This global news event will serve as a springboard for the project, primarily through the publication of a series of blogs on the project website about the role of nuclear and imperial histories in policy debates at the conference. Similarly, the project will also create connections and open up flows between the research trips and the workshops, with the latter exploring issues around archives, ethnography and cultural representation in nuclear research. The workshops will tap into materials gathered during the research trips, and collaborators from overseas will be able to shape the agenda of the workshops by pre-circulating items and questions for discussion. A multimedia blog will also be drafted and published on the project website after each research trip, this time focusing on hidden histories of nuclear imperialism. The final event of the project, the conference, will thus bring together a nexus of critical activities and connections. It will provide a space in which researchers and community representatives can debate and historicise the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, ultimately leading to the production of a live digital work that stands to make an impact across the field.