208 Susanne Bauer
Seen as “hallmarks of exposure to ionizing radiation,” 58 the presence of such
markers is interpreted as indicators of whether there truly was a significant
exposure. This locates the site of proof (and inscription device) within the
exposed body rather than in the residuals in the environment or the knowledge about exposure of the past in an area of nuclear test fallout. It shifts the
site of proof into exposed bodies and chromosomes of the blood cells in individuals, which positions the individual as the carrier of a somatic mutation
and individualizes the burden of proof of documenting exposure. Results
from some of these studies have fueled doubt about exposure and questioned
compensation programs that already had become law.
Internationally cytogenetic techniques changed and moved on rapidly
with PCR-based methods in genomics. Western scientists also used new
techniques – glycophorine A (GPA) assays, minisatellite, and fluorescence in
situ hybridization (FISH) that made visible more markers at Semipalatinsk
to examine radiation-induced chromosome alterations. 59 Yet, acquiring
the machinery and chemicals of genomics proved nearly impossible in the
post-Soviet economic crisis for these institutions. Most research groups, during the early post-Soviet years, lacked funding to maintain the technological
infrastructure, since the Soviet supply of equipment and access to common
scientific publication channels and to researcher salaries were cut off. The
post-Soviet crisis already had forced scientists into an improvised everyday
research life that required them to take on secondary jobs, subsistence and care
work within extended families, and occasional funded projects. Completing
a project with funding from abroad became a job within the job, providing paid works in otherwise uncertain situations with salaries put on hold or
delayed for months and handling precarious positions in an era where working
in academia did no longer provide enough to cope with the economic crisis.
With the formal salary infrastructures gone, the state once providing for them
dissolved and with no new infrastructure yet, memory practices took place in
an unofficial, informal project mode often negotiated ad hoc.
Bureaucratic Memory: Mining Vital Statistics
of the Population
Like for all modern political entities, keeping population statistics was central
to the making of a post-Soviet state. 60 With the end of the USSR’s administration of the research systems in the Central Asian Republics, scientific funding
structures dissolved and it proved difficult to sustain and realize long-term
projects. 61 For epidemiological risk assessment, also the administrative infrastructure in other sectors were crucial to data access and the administrative
memory of public health. Of particular importance to epidemiologists was
the ZAGS system, 62 the vital statistics authorities of the USSR, which registered data on births and deaths.
Following modern epidemiology’s generic definition, as “the study
of distribution and determinants of disease in populations,” radiation
Seen as “hallmarks of exposure to ionizing radiation,” 58 the presence of such
markers is interpreted as indicators of whether there truly was a significant
exposure. This locates the site of proof (and inscription device) within the
exposed body rather than in the residuals in the environment or the knowledge about exposure of the past in an area of nuclear test fallout. It shifts the
site of proof into exposed bodies and chromosomes of the blood cells in individuals, which positions the individual as the carrier of a somatic mutation
and individualizes the burden of proof of documenting exposure. Results
from some of these studies have fueled doubt about exposure and questioned
compensation programs that already had become law.
Internationally cytogenetic techniques changed and moved on rapidly
with PCR-based methods in genomics. Western scientists also used new
techniques – glycophorine A (GPA) assays, minisatellite, and fluorescence in
situ hybridization (FISH) that made visible more markers at Semipalatinsk
to examine radiation-induced chromosome alterations. 59 Yet, acquiring
the machinery and chemicals of genomics proved nearly impossible in the
post-Soviet economic crisis for these institutions. Most research groups, during the early post-Soviet years, lacked funding to maintain the technological
infrastructure, since the Soviet supply of equipment and access to common
scientific publication channels and to researcher salaries were cut off. The
post-Soviet crisis already had forced scientists into an improvised everyday
research life that required them to take on secondary jobs, subsistence and care
work within extended families, and occasional funded projects. Completing
a project with funding from abroad became a job within the job, providing paid works in otherwise uncertain situations with salaries put on hold or
delayed for months and handling precarious positions in an era where working
in academia did no longer provide enough to cope with the economic crisis.
With the formal salary infrastructures gone, the state once providing for them
dissolved and with no new infrastructure yet, memory practices took place in
an unofficial, informal project mode often negotiated ad hoc.
Bureaucratic Memory: Mining Vital Statistics
of the Population
Like for all modern political entities, keeping population statistics was central
to the making of a post-Soviet state. 60 With the end of the USSR’s administration of the research systems in the Central Asian Republics, scientific funding
structures dissolved and it proved difficult to sustain and realize long-term
projects. 61 For epidemiological risk assessment, also the administrative infrastructure in other sectors were crucial to data access and the administrative
memory of public health. Of particular importance to epidemiologists was
the ZAGS system, 62 the vital statistics authorities of the USSR, which registered data on births and deaths.
Following modern epidemiology’s generic definition, as “the study
of distribution and determinants of disease in populations,” radiation