Article ID: CBB382470203

Technological Fix or Divisible Object of Collective Concern? Histories of Conflict over the Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste in Sweden and France (2020)

unapi

Science and technology studies (STS) has cultivated a positive vision of technological controversies. By raising new issues to address, controversies are seen as generating more thorough and exhaustive processes of technology assessment. However, the ability to view controversies in this light remains dependent upon how technology is collectively imagined and understood. If it is envisioned as a classic technological fix then broader controversy is just what is intended to be overcome, not positively indulged. Albert Hirschman’s distinction between divisible and non-divisible conflicts captures such varying evaluations of controversy. In particular, it helps analyse how the long-standing fix of geological disposal of nuclear waste has been persistently defended as a non-negotiable object of technological concern – a recipe for escaping controversy by permanently isolating nuclear waste from the biosphere. Comparing the Swedish and French programmes for the geological disposal of nuclear waste shows how defending the technological integrity of a non-divisible disposal concept has remained an institutional fixation for Swedish nuclear waste management for over 30 years. In contrast, legislative demands for a reversible disposal concept introduced in France in the late 1990s have arguably served to unravel a technological fix into a divisible object of collective concern.

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Authors & Contributors
Halvorson, Charles
Dan McKanan
Lameli, Alfred
Woodworth, Paddy
Gervais, Mathieu
Richter, Jennifer
Concepts
Environmentalism
Environmental protection
Science and politics
Nuclear and radioactive waste
Technology and society
Climate change
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
France
Canada
Antarctica
Hawaii (U.S.)
Netherlands
Institutions
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
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