212 Susanne Bauer
close to and even within the nuclear test site borders. Nuclear legacies have
been inscribed into the census and tracked through population counts, but
also in individual exposed bodies in biodosimetry. After the first decade of
research though, science policy shifted and began to strive toward bringing
the post-Soviet chapter of handling the Semipalatinsk aftermath to a political
close. At the same time, Kazakhstan embarked on new economic paths that
comprised extractive economies, oil and gas, mining, metals, and in particular extensive uranium mining. As for Semipalatinsk, closing the radiation
issue also implied redirecting research to studies of nuclear risk perception in
terms of internalized mental health problems and as an issue of “radiophobia”
in communities in regions near the test site. This turned attention away from
the fallout’s residuals in the environment, which could enter – literally via
food webs and ingestion – into people’s bodies and, in the case of incorporated radionuclides, result in chronic internal exposure.
When it comes to toxic or radioactive legacies in the environment post-Soviet
kitchen conversations frequently arrive at “we are all mutants, after all.” The
long-term and genetic effects of radiation that would be transmitted to the
next generation have been among the main public concerns. This motive is
also alluded to in the monument “Stronger than Death” that epitomizes Cold
War reproduction as core concern. Reproduction, childcare, and gender roles
all have been shaped by a long history of state intervention, and the monument
evokes and reproduces a particular burden on and myth of the mother and
child, which haunted Soviet modernity. In contrast to the trope of the heroic
mother in the shadow of the atomic mushroom cloud, conceiving oneself as a
“radioactive mutant,” 66 as immune to radiation, or nuclear test survivor may
enable or claim different forms of agency within the post-nuclear condition.
Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet project of nation building has emerged as a multiscale endeavor that, in a biopolitical sense, reaches from state history policies,
governance of the nuclear past, and politics of knowledge into citizens’ subjectivities and embodiments. Studying the biologies of memory may open up for
resistant and generative critical capacities in the Anthropocene that exceed victimization and, instead, join efforts of reimagining and intervening into Cold
War epistemologies that continue to linger in the global nuclear aftermath.
Notes
1. Recent exhibitions of these archeological artifacts bear witness of the changed
role assigned to these institutions by government. See Nursan Alimbai, Tsentralnyi gosudarstvennyi muzei Respubliki Kazakhstan: kratkii istoricheskii ekskurs, strukturnye
preobrazovaniia, problemy. Trudy Tsentralnogo Muzeia II (Almaty: Gylym 2004), 11–18.
2. OSCE is the Acronym for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe, founded as Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975
in order to establish a dialogue to address security issues during the Cold War constellation. See Susanne Bauer, “Beyond the Nuclear Epicenter. Health Research,
Knowledge Infrastructures and Secrecy at Semipalatinsk,” Cahiers du Monde Russe,
60/no. 2–3, (2019): 493–516.
close to and even within the nuclear test site borders. Nuclear legacies have
been inscribed into the census and tracked through population counts, but
also in individual exposed bodies in biodosimetry. After the first decade of
research though, science policy shifted and began to strive toward bringing
the post-Soviet chapter of handling the Semipalatinsk aftermath to a political
close. At the same time, Kazakhstan embarked on new economic paths that
comprised extractive economies, oil and gas, mining, metals, and in particular extensive uranium mining. As for Semipalatinsk, closing the radiation
issue also implied redirecting research to studies of nuclear risk perception in
terms of internalized mental health problems and as an issue of “radiophobia”
in communities in regions near the test site. This turned attention away from
the fallout’s residuals in the environment, which could enter – literally via
food webs and ingestion – into people’s bodies and, in the case of incorporated radionuclides, result in chronic internal exposure.
When it comes to toxic or radioactive legacies in the environment post-Soviet
kitchen conversations frequently arrive at “we are all mutants, after all.” The
long-term and genetic effects of radiation that would be transmitted to the
next generation have been among the main public concerns. This motive is
also alluded to in the monument “Stronger than Death” that epitomizes Cold
War reproduction as core concern. Reproduction, childcare, and gender roles
all have been shaped by a long history of state intervention, and the monument
evokes and reproduces a particular burden on and myth of the mother and
child, which haunted Soviet modernity. In contrast to the trope of the heroic
mother in the shadow of the atomic mushroom cloud, conceiving oneself as a
“radioactive mutant,” 66 as immune to radiation, or nuclear test survivor may
enable or claim different forms of agency within the post-nuclear condition.
Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet project of nation building has emerged as a multiscale endeavor that, in a biopolitical sense, reaches from state history policies,
governance of the nuclear past, and politics of knowledge into citizens’ subjectivities and embodiments. Studying the biologies of memory may open up for
resistant and generative critical capacities in the Anthropocene that exceed victimization and, instead, join efforts of reimagining and intervening into Cold
War epistemologies that continue to linger in the global nuclear aftermath.
Notes
1. Recent exhibitions of these archeological artifacts bear witness of the changed
role assigned to these institutions by government. See Nursan Alimbai, Tsentralnyi gosudarstvennyi muzei Respubliki Kazakhstan: kratkii istoricheskii ekskurs, strukturnye
preobrazovaniia, problemy. Trudy Tsentralnogo Muzeia II (Almaty: Gylym 2004), 11–18.
2. OSCE is the Acronym for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe, founded as Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975
in order to establish a dialogue to address security issues during the Cold War constellation. See Susanne Bauer, “Beyond the Nuclear Epicenter. Health Research,
Knowledge Infrastructures and Secrecy at Semipalatinsk,” Cahiers du Monde Russe,
60/no. 2–3, (2019): 493–516.