Economic Development of the Soviet-Era Nuclear Test Site in Kazakhstan

Economic Development of the Soviet-Era Nuclear Test Site in Kazakhstan
Date
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Event Sponsor
CREEES Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)
Location
William J. Perry Conference Room

This presentation explores the recent repurposing of the former Soviet-era Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site in Kazakhstan, from military zone, to highly productive resource landscape. In what follows, I examine the context for various post-Cold War economies that have taken off at Semipalatinsk and examine local, regional, and national governance regimes that are all rooted in varying interpretations of environmental history, scientific knowledge, and existing relationships of populations with radioactivity and corporate interests. Kazakhstan inherited one of the world’s most “disturbed” Cold War landscapes, polluted with residual radioactivity and heavy metals from nuclear testing. But Kazakhstan also inherited the vast steppe ranges, including Semipalatinsk, where rich deposits of coal, gold, copper, and other extractable ores can be easily harvested, with increasing development a priority. The contemporary situation exhibits a surprising lack of resistance to economic development of the territory by both local residents, national and non-governmental organizations, and global institutions. Perhaps more surprising, and what I locate as key to understanding the contemporary situation, is the seeming solidarity between corporate interests and local populations all of whom are eager to make use of the radioactive landscape in spite of all that is known in other similar spatial configurations about the toxic politics that this alliance foresees.

Magdalena Stawkowski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and a faculty associate at the Walker Institute for International Studies at the University of South Carolina. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2014. Previously, Stawkowski was a postdoctoral teaching scholar in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. Prior to that, she was a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Her research has been supported by a number of grants, including those from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, IREX, the Danish Council for Independent Research, and others.

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