Uranium exposed at Expo 58: the colonial agenda behind the peaceful atom

Autor: Dennis Pohl
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: History and technology, 37 (2), 172–202
History and Technology, 37(2)
ISSN: 0734-1512
1477-2620
DOI: 10.5445/ir/1000142888
Popis: This research focuses on the staged contrast between atomic modernity and colonial backwardness at Expo 58 in Brussels, as a strategic promise of the peaceful nuclear, powered by Congolese uranium. I analyze the management of nuclear power ��� ranging from household technologies to European (post)colonial infrastructures of uranium resources and nuclear power plants ��� to reveal architecture as a geopolitical technology. The article argues that the ���domestication of the atom��� goes hand in hand with the domestication of power, exercised through architecture on various levels, affecting the politics of visibility, knowledge, and imagination. The article examines Expo 58 as a case study, where global uranium agents such as the Union Mini��re du Haut-Katanga (UMHK), the US Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC), the Belgian Centre d�����tudes pour les applications de l���Energie Nucl��aire (SKC-CEN), and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) met in a setting that constructed both a Western scientific gaze and colonial backwardness.
Databáze: OpenAIRE