The role of nuclear cultural heritage in long-term nuclear waste governance
Authors: Noka Viktoria , Mbah Melanie 
Published: September 2023

Abstract. Against the background of the long period of time for which the highly
radioactive waste is to be safely stored, this waste is understood as an
eternal burden (Brunnengräber, 2015). For the human imagination, such
long periods of time are hardly comprehensible and graspable; instead,
fears, worries and ideas fed by past and present experiences prevail, out of
which expectations for the future are developed. According to StandAG,
the site selection procedure should be transparent, participatory, learning,
self-questioning and science-based, i.e. a procedure that can be perceived
as fair and comprehensible and can thus promote the acceptability of the
decision for a site and ensure “added value” of the site beyond its core
function (NEA, 2022). At the same time, the interests of numerous
stakeholders across generations and their role in active or more passive
oversight of the site must be taken into account. Even after the site has
been chosen, during the construction and operating phases, and after the
repository has been closed, the memory of the repository must be preserved,
and the region that takes on the burden must be honoured. This region will
already change beforehand, for example due to the activities during the
construction and emplacement phase, the attribution of meaning by the media,
politics, and the public of the region as a future repository region. International literature on nuclear heritage (Rindzevičiūtė,
2019; Pitkanen and Farish, 2018), cultural memories (Assmann, 2010), nuclearity
(Blowers, 2016; Hecht, 2014), energy cultures (Uhlig, 2020; Stephenson et al.,
2015), spatial identity processes (Devine-Wright and Batel, 2017), and long-term
governance and institutionalization (Mbah and Kuppler, 2021), as well as
sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim, 2013; Watkins, 2014), show different
approaches on how developments in connection with changes of the landscape over
time and the identity of a region can take place and how an
institutionalization of places of nuclear cultural heritage could look.
Places of nuclear significance often develop locally starting from nuclear
infrastructures and activities concerning nuclear issues such as protests
and might include institutionalization processes, e.g. the implementation of
places of memory like museums. This may happen without the initial intention
of institutionalization of a nuclear cultural heritage. Additionally,
top-down processes from politics and administration may support
institutionalization actively. How the different processes and activities
are intertwined and foster institutionalization, as well as the role of
different timescales in relation to these processes, is still open for
debate (e.g. Pescatore and Palm, 2020). The aim of this research is to explore
these multiple aspects that play into the development and emergence of
nuclear heritage sites and sketch how a nuclear cultural heritage can aid in
working towards long-term nuclear waste governance in a way that takes into
account the spatial and cultural specificities of heritage sites and
landscapes.