Nuclear Ontologies, Technopolitics in Postcolonial Spaces, and the Cold War as Transnational History: An interview with Gabrielle Hecht

Abstract

Gabrielle Hecht argues that nuclear exceptionalism is a form of technopolitical claims-making. Tracing the historical process by which something comes to count as a “nuclear” thing not only reveals the ontological insecurity of the nuclear, but also shifts the research focus from high politics to the (post)colonial spaces that play a key role in nuclear weapons programs. The study of the diversity of global technopolitics requires a close collaboration between science and technology studies and IR