When overflow is the rule: The evolution of the transnational nuclear assemblage and its technopolitical tools for framing human–radionuclide relationality

Abstract

This paper explores the productive role of radiological overflows in the historical evolution of the 100 mSv assumption—a technopolitical tool used to frame human–radionuclide relationality in the aftermath of Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO’s) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011. Pairing Callon’s (1998: 264) “logic of framing/overflowing” with sensibilities from the field of feminist material semiotics, the analysis illuminates how a desire to contain public unrest incited by radiological overflows while simultaneously advancing nuclear weapons and nuclear energy programs has led to the formation of the transnational nuclear assemblage—a vast assemblage of scientists, institutional actors, texts, technopolitical tools, etc.—which translates radiological overflows into dominant scientific frameworks for quantifying and regulating human–radionuclide relationality. Exploring the technopolitical nature of the transnational nuclear assemblage’s 100 mSv assumption, the analysis highlights how this assumption participates in enacting a firm, yet flexible frame for containing the messy heterogeneity of ‘low-level’—under 100mSv—human–radionuclide relationality, as well as in marginalizing democratic and scientific debate. The paper ends with a reflection on the contingency of the transnational nuclear assemblage’s framing project, and on other opportunities for attending to the complex socio-materiality of human–radionuclide relationality, particularly at low-levels of exposure.