40 Stefan Guth
the withdrawal of international investors on the global financial crisis, but it
is no secret that the declining appeal of the project reflected, above all, the
investors’ belated insight that it was to be realized in the immediate vicinity
of one of the world’s largest tailings reservoirs.
If one thing became clear in the process of updating the nuclear oasis, it
was that past experience has rendered sociotechnical imaginaries of nuclear
futures less appealing to the broader population than the political leadership had anticipated. But it is not just imaginaries that have suffered damage. Even more importantly, prior interventions of nuclear technopolitics are
today indelibly inscribed into the landscape of Mangyshlak (and many other
parts of Kazakhstan and the larger post-Soviet space), profoundly limiting
the scope for further technopolitical action in many places. 170 In the end,
then, the present architects of Kazakhstan’s nuclear technopolitics find their
attempts to recommit to visions of an atomic-powered future frustrated by
the insight that nuclear technologies and nuclear ecologies unfold on vastly
incommensurable timescales, forcing future generations to deal with the latter rather than to engage with the former.
Notes
1. For a recent exploration of the term’s connotations and implications, see Laura
Pitkanen/Matthew Farish, “Nuclear Landscapes,” in: Progress in Human Geography
42 (2018) 6, 862–880.
2. Paul R. Josephson, Red Atom. Russia’s Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today,
New York, NY 2000, 243–252.
3. For the United States, see Michel Christopher Low, “Desert Dreams of Drinking
the Sea, Consumed by the Cold War: Transnational Flows of Desalination and
Energy from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf,” in: Environment and History 26 (2020)
2, 145–174.
4. This shift in perspective is in-line with a current trend in research “toward a more
constructionist approach to the history of technology and away from the declensionist narratives in environmental history.” Hugh S. Gorman/Betsy Mendelsohn,
“Where Does Nature End and Culture Begin? Converging Themes in the History
of Technology and Environmental History,” in: Martin Reuss/Stephen H. Cutcliffe (eds.), The Illusory Boundary. Environment and Technology in History, Charlottesville, VA/London 2010, 265–290 (277).
5. For the concept, see Sara B. Pritchard, Confluence: The Nature of Technology and the
Remaking of the Rhône, Cambridge, MA 2011.
6. Sheila Jasanoff, “Imagined and Invented Worlds,” in: Sheila Jasanoff/Sang-Hyun
Kim (eds.), Dreamscapes of Modernity. Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of
Power, Chicago/London 2015, 321–341 (339).
7. Paul R. Josephson, “Atomic-Powered Communism. Nuclear Culture in the Postwar USSR,” in: Slavic Review 55 (1996) 2, 297–324.
8. G.A. Mashkovtsev/A.K. Migupa/V.N. Shchetochkin, “Rol’ VIMSa v sozdanii i
razvitii mineral’no-syr’evoi bazy urana,” in: Razvedka i okhrana nedr 75 (2005) 10,
59–66.
9. V.N. Savel’ev/O.V. Bystritskii, “Atomnoi promyshlennosti Kazakhstana 65 let,” in:
Khabarshy Vestnik: Nauchnyi Zhurnal 25 (2010) 3, 7–17; Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv
Mangistauskoi Oblasti [GAMO], Aktau, f. 530.
the withdrawal of international investors on the global financial crisis, but it
is no secret that the declining appeal of the project reflected, above all, the
investors’ belated insight that it was to be realized in the immediate vicinity
of one of the world’s largest tailings reservoirs.
If one thing became clear in the process of updating the nuclear oasis, it
was that past experience has rendered sociotechnical imaginaries of nuclear
futures less appealing to the broader population than the political leadership had anticipated. But it is not just imaginaries that have suffered damage. Even more importantly, prior interventions of nuclear technopolitics are
today indelibly inscribed into the landscape of Mangyshlak (and many other
parts of Kazakhstan and the larger post-Soviet space), profoundly limiting
the scope for further technopolitical action in many places. 170 In the end,
then, the present architects of Kazakhstan’s nuclear technopolitics find their
attempts to recommit to visions of an atomic-powered future frustrated by
the insight that nuclear technologies and nuclear ecologies unfold on vastly
incommensurable timescales, forcing future generations to deal with the latter rather than to engage with the former.
Notes
1. For a recent exploration of the term’s connotations and implications, see Laura
Pitkanen/Matthew Farish, “Nuclear Landscapes,” in: Progress in Human Geography
42 (2018) 6, 862–880.
2. Paul R. Josephson, Red Atom. Russia’s Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today,
New York, NY 2000, 243–252.
3. For the United States, see Michel Christopher Low, “Desert Dreams of Drinking
the Sea, Consumed by the Cold War: Transnational Flows of Desalination and
Energy from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf,” in: Environment and History 26 (2020)
2, 145–174.
4. This shift in perspective is in-line with a current trend in research “toward a more
constructionist approach to the history of technology and away from the declensionist narratives in environmental history.” Hugh S. Gorman/Betsy Mendelsohn,
“Where Does Nature End and Culture Begin? Converging Themes in the History
of Technology and Environmental History,” in: Martin Reuss/Stephen H. Cutcliffe (eds.), The Illusory Boundary. Environment and Technology in History, Charlottesville, VA/London 2010, 265–290 (277).
5. For the concept, see Sara B. Pritchard, Confluence: The Nature of Technology and the
Remaking of the Rhône, Cambridge, MA 2011.
6. Sheila Jasanoff, “Imagined and Invented Worlds,” in: Sheila Jasanoff/Sang-Hyun
Kim (eds.), Dreamscapes of Modernity. Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of
Power, Chicago/London 2015, 321–341 (339).
7. Paul R. Josephson, “Atomic-Powered Communism. Nuclear Culture in the Postwar USSR,” in: Slavic Review 55 (1996) 2, 297–324.
8. G.A. Mashkovtsev/A.K. Migupa/V.N. Shchetochkin, “Rol’ VIMSa v sozdanii i
razvitii mineral’no-syr’evoi bazy urana,” in: Razvedka i okhrana nedr 75 (2005) 10,
59–66.
9. V.N. Savel’ev/O.V. Bystritskii, “Atomnoi promyshlennosti Kazakhstana 65 let,” in:
Khabarshy Vestnik: Nauchnyi Zhurnal 25 (2010) 3, 7–17; Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv
Mangistauskoi Oblasti [GAMO], Aktau, f. 530.