The Conceptual Complexity of Pacific Nuclear Free Movements

• In Event: Ethical and Security Implication of Nuclear and Emerging Technologies

Abstract

What does it mean to become “nuclear-free”? This paper understands “nuclear-free” as a powerful discourse— a constellation of meanings that constitute and are constituted by social relations— to tease out the conceptual complexity of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movements (1970s—). Based on archival research and interviews with Pacific antinuclear activists in Hawai‘i, the Marshall Islands, Fiji, and Aotearoa New Zealand, I demonstrate how the nuclear-free discourse is deeply rooted in sovereignty struggles that connect ‘being free from nuclear” with visions of 1) being free from oppression, 2) restoring indigenous (and other types of) sovereignty, and 3) healing the deep relations among human (especially women), land, ocean, and other life forms. Learning from how Pacific activists connected diverse issues under the nuclear-free discourse, this paper further argues that antinuclear activism in the Pacific is never only about “nuclear.” Instead, it mobilizes a more expansive and multifaceted framework that centers on indigenous sovereignty.

Author

• Ruoyu Li, Johns Hopkins University