Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seen was Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter of its territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive fallout was largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like noncontaminated ones. It could be known only through constructed representations of it. In The Politics of Invisibility, Olga Kuchinskaya explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl, describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. Her analysis sheds valuable light on how we deal with other modern hazards -- toxins or global warming -- that are largely imperceptible to the human senses.Kuchinskaya describes the production of invisibility of Chernobyl's consequences in Belarus -- practices that limit public attention to radiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiological contamination requires infrastructural solutions, she argues, the production and propagation of invisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from redefining the scope and nature of the accident's consequences to reshaping research and protection practices. Kuchinskaya finds vast fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successful efforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl's consequences at different levels -- among affected populations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production of invisibility, she argues, is a function of power relations.
...MoreReview M. Gross (2016) Review of "Science Transformed? Debating Claims of an Epochal Break". Public Understanding of Science (pp. 126-128).
Review Krupar, Jason N. (2016) Review of "The Politics of Invisibility: Public Knowledge about Radiation Health Effects After Chernobyl". Technology and Culture (pp. 490-492).
Article
Gerstenberger, Katharina;
(2014)
Störfälle: Literary Accounts from Chernobyl to Fukushima
(/isis/citation/CBB001202007/)
Article
Melanie Arndt;
(April 2018)
The Babushkas of Chernobyl
(/isis/citation/CBB797808092/)
Book
Tatiana Kasperski;
(2020)
Les politiques de la radioactivité: Tchernobyl et la mémoire nationale en Biélorussie contemporaine
(/isis/citation/CBB313649724/)
Article
Schmid, Sonja D.;
(2004)
Transformation Discourse: Nuclear Risk as a Strategic Tool in Late Soviet Politics of Expertise
(/isis/citation/CBB000750386/)
Thesis
Kuchinskaya, Olga;
(2007)
“We Will Die and Become Science”: The Production of Invisibility and PublicKnowledge about Chernobyl Radiation Effects in Belarus
(/isis/citation/CBB001561369/)
Article
Sugiman, Toshio;
(2014)
Lessons Learned from the 2011 Debacle of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
(/isis/citation/CBB001420061/)
Book
Diatlov, Aleksandr;
(2003)
Chernobyl'. Kak eto bylo
(/isis/citation/CBB000321014/)
Book
Schmid, Sonja D.;
(2015)
Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry
(/isis/citation/CBB001510002/)
Book
Sidorenko, Viktor;
(2001-2003)
Istoriia atomnoi energetiki Sovetskogo Soiuza i Rossii
(/isis/citation/CBB000321016/)
Article
Kuchinskaya, Olga;
(2011)
Articulating the Signs of Danger: Lay Experiences of Post-Chernobyl Radiation Risks and Effects
(/isis/citation/CBB001034665/)
Book
Sergei Belyakov;
(2019)
Liquidator: The Chernobyl Story
(/isis/citation/CBB557540248/)
Article
Marriner, Nick;
Morhange, Christophe;
(2013)
Data Mining the Intellectual Revival of “Catastrophic” Mother Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB001320859/)
Article
Sahm, Astrid;
(2013)
Atomenergie in Ost- und Westeuropa: Reaktionen auf Tschernobyl und Fukushima
(/isis/citation/CBB001200600/)
Article
Petryna, Adriana;
(2004)
Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed Populations
(/isis/citation/CBB000750331/)
Book
Kate (Kathryn L. ) Brown;
(2019)
Manual for survival : a Chernobyl guide to the future
(/isis/citation/CBB110801125/)
Book
Toshihiro Higuchi;
(2020)
Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis
(/isis/citation/CBB212919708/)
Book
Hamblin, Jacob Darwin;
(2008)
Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age
(/isis/citation/CBB000774692/)
Article
Agar, Jon;
(2013)
Sacrificial Experts? Science, Senescence and Saving the British Nuclear Project
(/isis/citation/CBB001252611/)
Article
Pritchard, Sara B.;
(2012)
An Envirotechnical Disaster: Nature, Technology, and Politics at Fukushima
(/isis/citation/CBB001232549/)
Book
Toshihiro Higuchi;
(2020)
Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis
(/isis/citation/CBB347886249/)
Be the first to comment!