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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2022

From military surveillance to citizen counter-expertise: radioactivity monitoring in a nuclear world

Nestor Herran

Résumé

The history of radioactivity surveillance and its role in the configuration of the nuclear world is a quite underexplored topic. What were the motivations behind their establishment? Which actors and institutions played a relevant role in their creation and maintenance? How the measurements they provided were mobilised in debates on nuclear risks? In order to answer these questions, I examine their history since the establishment of the first monitoring programs in the late 1940s. This history reveals that their development has been driven by at least four different (and sometimes competing) agendas. The most fundamental one is typically military, associated with the implementation of military nuclear surveillance systems. Exemplified by the wide CNTBTO network, it continues to be central even after the end of the Cold War. In the mid- and late-1950s, a second agenda, related to the assessment of global nuclear risks, appeared amidst the controversy regarding nuclear tests fallout. Intertwining military and civil institutions, this configuration contributed to the public visibility of radioactive fallout as well as its construction as a manageable problem. Following a similar logic, a third layer of monitoring networks was implemented starting in the 1960s alongside the extension of nuclear power stations. These both served to oversee potential problems and to preempt liability claims resulting from foreseeable accidental releases of radioactivity. These initially modest monitoring networks were expanded after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 to appease public fear and distrust of nuclear technology. The parallel emergence of alternative, citizen-based monitoring networks, constitutes the fourth and last agenda, in direct tension with the previous one, which has aided to foster recent participative dynamics that promote transparency. Public participation emerged as key elements for the legitimation of the nuclear complex.
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Dates et versions

hal-04237524 , version 1 (11-10-2023)

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Nestor Herran. From military surveillance to citizen counter-expertise: radioactivity monitoring in a nuclear world. Living in a Nuclear World, 1, Routledge, pp.132-147, 2022, ⟨10.4324/9781003227472-6⟩. ⟨hal-04237524⟩
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