The next Nordic Theoretical Archaeology Group conference will be held in Turku, Finland, on 6–9 March 2024. As part of the program, we are organising a session on the heritages and archaeologies of nuclear power. If you are interested in participating, we kindly welcome you to send a paper abstract (max. 300 words) to marko.marila@liu.se no later than 1 December 2023. More information can be found on the Nordic TAG 2024 website.

Heritage/Archaeology of Nuclear Power
Session organisers: Marko Marila & Anna Storm

From uranium prospecting to operating power plants and long-term storage facilities for nuclear waste, the nuclear power cycle produces tangible and intangible heritages. The scars of uranium mining linger in the surrounding nature in the form of waste rock and radiation. Nuclear power plants undergoing decommissioning evoke strong emotions in those who once worked in them, as well as in those who opposed their commissioning in the first place. The most enduring – and the most researched – legacy of the nuclear power cycle is high-level waste which can stay radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, forcing us to adopt a radically future-looking approach to heritage, but also calling for archaeological knowledges in attempting to predict the meanings and uses of nuclear heritage in the far future.

We offer this session as an opportunity for current reflections on the heritages and archaeologies of nuclear power. We welcome theoretical, practical, and speculative papers exploring, but in no way limited to, heritological and archaeological treatments on the following themes:
– contemporary archaeologies and materialities of the nuclear power cycle
– the heritages and archaeologies of anti- and pro-nuclear movements
– nuclear power as cultural and natural heritage
– nuclear decommissioning as heritagisation
– the heritages of nuclear disasters
– nuclear tourism.

Photo: Marko Mikael Marila