CAPAS RESEARCH PROJECT - Susanne Bauer Anthropogenic Ecologies: Human-Soil Relations in the Nuclear Aftermath
Soils are key to human survival, and global soil degradation has led to recent proclamations of a crisis of soils, exacerbated by climate change. The earth’s metabolic zone has come under existential threat, according to Anthropocene research. Yet, as decolonial and Indigenous studies scholars remind us, for many communities apocalypse has already happened as a consequence of colonialism. Large-scale mining, industrial production, intensive agriculture, nuclear programs, war, and military operations have led to persistent pollution in soil with unequal effects on communities. This project undertakes diffractive readings of post–Cold War radiation ecology and historicizes the technoscience of nuclear risk and control. Bringing into conversation the natural sciences, environmental humanities, and nuclear frontline communities, it foregrounds matters of epistemic justice. This contributes to reorientations away from damage science toward more situated knowledges and collective learning in catastrophic times.