Joining multiple collaborations : toward a sociomaterial perspective on nuclear waste management between society, technology and nature

Abstract

The article develops a sociomaterial perspective on nuclear waste management by illuminating the role of geological formations and therefore ‘nature’ with respect to site selection procedures. Besides technical barriers (containers) and geotechnical barriers (filling materials), geological formations should serve as ‘natural’ barriers in their function as host rocks in order to isolate radioactive waste for thousands of years. Referring to empirical insights into the German procedure of site selection and ethnographic research on practices in a nuclear chemical laboratory, the contribution illustrates how humans and materials are interwoven in an alliance of multiple sociomaterial collaborations united by the task to isolate a toxic object—here, high-level radioactive waste. In this way, the article sheds light on how nature is addressed not only as a resource for an anthropocentric project but also as an active collaborator in order to master such disposal processes in the long run. Such a sociomaterial perspective aims to enrich sociotechnical considerations by emphasizing the role of nature as an integral part of nuclear waste management and by studying its complexity.