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The Nuclear Sensorium: Cold War Nuclear Imperialism and Sensory Violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2019

John Shiga
John Shiga*
Affiliation:
School of Professional Communication Ryerson Universityjshiga@ryerson.ca
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Abstract

This paper traces the sensory dimensions of nuclear imperialism focusing on the Cold War nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States military in the Marshall Islands during the 1950s. Key to the formation of the “nuclear sensorium” were the interfaces between vibration, sound, and radioactive contamination, which were mobilized by scientists such as oceanographer Walter Munk as part of the US Nuclear Testing Program. While scientists occupied privileged points in technoscientific networks to sense the effects of nuclear weapons, a series of lawsuits filed by communities affected by the tests drew attention to military-scientific use of inhabitants’ bodies as repositories of data concerning the ecological impact of the bomb and the manner in which sensing practices used to extract this data extended the violence and trauma of nuclear weapons. Nuclear imperialism projected its power not only through weapons tests, the vaporization of land and the erosion of the rights of people who lived there, but also through the production of a “nuclear sensorium”—the differentiation of modes of sensing the bomb through legal, military, and scientific discourses and the attribution of varying degrees of epistemological value and legal weight to these sensory modes.

Résumé

Cet article trace les dimensions sensorielles de l’impérialisme nucléaire en se concentrant sur les essais d’armes nucléaires de la Guerre froide qui ont été conduits par les Forces armées des États-Unis dans les îles Marshall pendant les années 1950. Les éléments clés de la création du « Sensorium nucléaire » reposaient sur les interfaces entre la vibration, la contamination sonore et la contamination radioactive. Ces interfaces ont été mobilisées par des scientifiques tels que l’océanographe Walter Munk dans le cadre du programme d’essais nucléaires américain. L’impérialisme nucléaire a non seulement projeté son pouvoir par des essais d’armes, la vaporisation des terres et l’érosion des droits des personnes qui y vivaient, mais également à travers la production d’un « Sensorium nucléaire » – une différenciation des modes de détection de la bombe à travers les discours juridiques, militaires et scientifiques ainsi que dans l’attribution de différents degrés de valeurs épistémologiques et juridiques à ces modes sensoriels.

Keywords

environmental litigationnuclear weapon testsdark ecologyCold War politicsAtomic Energy Act 1946sensory practiceslitige environnementalessais d’armes nucléairesécologie noirepolitiques de la Guerre froidela Loi sur le contrôle de l’énergie atomique de 1946pratiques sensorielles
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 34 , Special Issue 2: Vers une déstabilisation du sensorium du droit: Étude de la jurisprudence des sens / Troubling Law’s Sensorium: Explorations in Sensational Jurisprudence , August 2019 , pp. 281 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2019 

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