3 The Cultural Object in Representations of the Nuclear
Sector
First and foremost, the cultural object can be seen as a product of social representations. The Chernobyl accident caused a representational crisis. What resources
and symbolic systems were available to represent the radioactive ‘evil’? The
nuclear crisis therefore led cultural actors to reflect on how to represent an ‘invisible
evil’
8 and its impact on perceptions of reality. But the cultural object is more than a
product of social reality. It is also an agent involved in the creation of representations and in the structuring of socio-technical controversies.
3.1 The Object as a Product
One approach suggests a cultural history of nuclear accidents, consisting of “all
forms of collective representations, how societies see and represent what is external
to them, symbolically through values, spiritually through belief systems, intellectually through the construction of ideas, and pragmatically through image- or textbased techniques (discursive practices) or other means (non-discursive practices)”
[4]. The researcher must therefore explain how the nuclear accident is a break with
(or a continuation of) representations of risk perception and its relationship with
social reality.
The nuclear accident is represented as a catastrophe, which can be defined as an
“event causing a disaster of major magnitude, whose social and symbolic consequences are on a historical scale” [26]. The unending consequences of Chernobyl
marked a radical change: they created an area that was out of bounds to the world,
manifested by the abandonment of vast areas where the invisible threat of radiation
lurked [27]. Beck notes, in the preface to his book Risk Society [28] that mankind
has always responded to suffering, misery and violence by resorting to the ‘Other’.
Chernobyl put an end to this ability to put events at a distance. Since the Soviet
accident, it has not longer been possible to ignore the dangers of the nuclear age.
From that point, fear became the product of the most advanced levels of progress in
the modern world.
Using an apocalyptic scenario, cultural objects represent the anguish that the
Soviet accident triggered. The novel Silence, we’re irradiating (Silence, on irradie)
[29] suggests that even the normal operation of a nuclear installation foreshadows
disaster. In this novel, workers suffer from all kinds of illnesses: headaches, loss of
teeth, dark spots on the skin. Children suffer from physical defects, mental
8
The term radioactive ‘evil’ comes from the work of Dupuy on “the empowerment of evil with
respect to the intentions of those who commit it” [25]. In the case of Hiroshima, evil comes from
the intention to commit evil, while in the case of Fukushima, evil comes from the intention on the
part of industrial actors to do good.
What Cultural Objects Say About Nuclear Accidents …
143
Sector
First and foremost, the cultural object can be seen as a product of social representations. The Chernobyl accident caused a representational crisis. What resources
and symbolic systems were available to represent the radioactive ‘evil’? The
nuclear crisis therefore led cultural actors to reflect on how to represent an ‘invisible
evil’
8 and its impact on perceptions of reality. But the cultural object is more than a
product of social reality. It is also an agent involved in the creation of representations and in the structuring of socio-technical controversies.
3.1 The Object as a Product
One approach suggests a cultural history of nuclear accidents, consisting of “all
forms of collective representations, how societies see and represent what is external
to them, symbolically through values, spiritually through belief systems, intellectually through the construction of ideas, and pragmatically through image- or textbased techniques (discursive practices) or other means (non-discursive practices)”
[4]. The researcher must therefore explain how the nuclear accident is a break with
(or a continuation of) representations of risk perception and its relationship with
social reality.
The nuclear accident is represented as a catastrophe, which can be defined as an
“event causing a disaster of major magnitude, whose social and symbolic consequences are on a historical scale” [26]. The unending consequences of Chernobyl
marked a radical change: they created an area that was out of bounds to the world,
manifested by the abandonment of vast areas where the invisible threat of radiation
lurked [27]. Beck notes, in the preface to his book Risk Society [28] that mankind
has always responded to suffering, misery and violence by resorting to the ‘Other’.
Chernobyl put an end to this ability to put events at a distance. Since the Soviet
accident, it has not longer been possible to ignore the dangers of the nuclear age.
From that point, fear became the product of the most advanced levels of progress in
the modern world.
Using an apocalyptic scenario, cultural objects represent the anguish that the
Soviet accident triggered. The novel Silence, we’re irradiating (Silence, on irradie)
[29] suggests that even the normal operation of a nuclear installation foreshadows
disaster. In this novel, workers suffer from all kinds of illnesses: headaches, loss of
teeth, dark spots on the skin. Children suffer from physical defects, mental
8
The term radioactive ‘evil’ comes from the work of Dupuy on “the empowerment of evil with
respect to the intentions of those who commit it” [25]. In the case of Hiroshima, evil comes from
the intention to commit evil, while in the case of Fukushima, evil comes from the intention on the
part of industrial actors to do good.
What Cultural Objects Say About Nuclear Accidents …
143