The traditional orientation of the nuclear policy field – and foreign policy, more broadly – places policy experts act as gatekeepers of knowledge, conducting research at the epicenter of political power, in the hopes to influence government and other decision- makers. But most people encounter nuclear weapons in the past tense, perhaps as a page in a textbook with photographs of scientists tinkering with the metal and wires of the bomb, along with the rubble of the aftermath. But what does it mean to learn this issue not as a Cold War relic or a future threat , but an active issue that continues to unfold? Bombshelltoe aims to bring the environmental and cultural dimensions of nuclear weapons production (i.e., former uranium mining; testing; displacement of communities for research sites) as a body of scholarship within the nuclear field. While NGOs are better at acknowledging front-line community experiences, it is often categorized as advocacy or grassroots. And stories typically do not come from these communities directly, so they are not represented or cited. This is a systemic issue in expert fields, as Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith writes: “[marginalized peoples] are being excluded systematically from the writing of their own histories.”
As such, Ways of Knowing facilitated a conversation among a select group of nuclear experts as well as Navajo / local scholars about uranium mining legacy, to include: a policy component (what we know / don’t know about uranium mining for U.S. defense purposes), a scientific component (how uranium contamination redefined reclamation, remediation, and restoration within the context of “traditional ecological knowledge”), and community component (how contamination affects the relationship among Navajo youth, elders, and land). Through these opportunities for honest and constructive dialogue, Ways of Knowing will foster mutual learning between these two communities.
At its core, Ways of Knowing believes that if the nuclear policy community welcome alternative modes of analysis, production, and communication beyond the dominant frame of accepted scholarship (the geopolitical unit of analysis), it will gradually re-orient the way the nuclear field asks questions, conduct research, and develop policy. It envisions a future in which policy experts reckon with nuclear weapons legacies in its entirety, and incorporates the expertise of local communities in its national- and international policy thinking.
