Rehabilitating Ranger uranium mine:scientific uncertainty, deep futures and the production of ignorance

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research explores contestations surrounding the rehabilitation of the Ranger Uranium Mine in the Northern Territory of Australia. I highlight how particular scientific knowledges are privileged throughout the rehabilitation process, but only so long as the rehabilitation problems at hand are deemed manageable. I also argue that the implications of the immense time scales of impacts are being ignored, and the question of monitoring, remediation, and regulation thousands of years into the deep future constitutes a kind of ‘uncomfortable knowledge’. Ultimately, I contend that the legacy of the rehabilitated Ranger uranium mine will pose long-term threats to the environment and Mirarr Traditional Owners of the area, and that this slow violence constitutes a kind of unacknowledged environmental disaster, but one which is being disregarded through the active production of ignorance.