Becoming the Nuclear-Front-End

Zur Verschiebung der „nuklear-extraktiven Grenze“ nach Tansania

Abstract

Uranium mining often escapes the attention of debates around the nuclear industries. The chemical elements’ representations are focused on the nuclear reactor. The article explores what I refer to as becoming the nuclear front – the uranium mining frontier’s expansion to Tanzania, its historical entanglements and current state. The geographies of the nuclear industries parallel dominant patterns and the unevenness of the global divisions of labour, resource production and consumption. Clearly related to the developments and expectations in the field of atomic power production, uranium exploration and the gathering of geological knowledge on resource potentiality remains a peripheral realm of the technopolitical perceptions of the nuclear fuel chain. Seen as less spectacular and less associated with high-technology than the better-known elements of the nuclear industry the article thus aims to shine light on the processes that pre-figure uranium mining by looking at the example of Tanzania.