Peder Anker

A History of Uranium Mining in Canada

June 12, 2023 at 11:01 am Leave a comment

“A History of Uranium Mining in Canada,” JAm It! 8 (2023), 5-23. [PDF]

Abstract

The history of uranium mining on indigenous land in Canada is a story of settler colonialism, conflicts, and a clash of systems of belief. Pending whose knowledge you seek and which rationality you chose, it’s a history that entails both pessimistic and optimistic perspectives. The miners believed in a rationality of prosperity at the expense of the existing First Nation cultures. It’s a history of settler colonialism in which the process of conquest generated counterclaims of defeat. The ongoing clash between claims and counter-claims, prophecies and counter-prophecies, traditional and scientific knowledge, mark the history of Canadian mining along with the larger history of nuclear industries and weaponry. The Canadian uranium mines of the 1930s recuperated the first reactions to nuclear industries and disasters, but were also an early warning about what uranium-bearing minerals could do. That came in the form of what sounded like a mystical prophecy to Western ears, though to indigenous culture it was understood as medical advice. By untangling different rationalities for mining as well as a few early voices of resistance to it, the aim of this article is to uncover the origin and social dynamics of benefitting and suffering that came to mark a global crisis

Entry filed under: Articles, Home, Publications. Tags: History of Science, nuclear.