Making fun of the atom: Humor and pleasant forms of anti‐nuclear resistance in the Iberian Peninsula, 1974–1984

Abstract

In the mid‐1970s, the fascist‐leaning dictatorships in Spain (1939–1977) and Portugal (1933–1974) fell. Closely linked to the 1973 oil crisis, debates over energy and technology policies became very prominent during the ensuing political redefinition of both countries. Two decades after the first international agreements between the Iberian regimes and the United States for the development of nuclear programs, a myriad of movements of social resistance to nuclear technology emerged in dialogue with anti‐nuclear organizations in other European countries. Fun and playfulness have been used for top–down popularization and banalization of nuclear technologies since the 1950s, but here pleasant forms of resistance also played a central role in contesting national energy plans, expert discourses, and vested interests. This article explores what we call “anti‐nuclear fun,” the use of amusement, play, and humor as political and epistemic tools to familiarize society with the exceptional and daily risks of the “peaceful atom.”

Gegen Kernkraftwerke kämpfen Windenergie, Basisbewegung und Technologien des Protests in Spanien, 1976–1984

“…In the multilayered turmoil, the debates on energy, environment and the so-called "transition technologies" for sustainable economies intertwined with the political "Transition". 5 The Francoist National Energy Plans, which included a very ambitious nuclear program, were mostly adopted by the first provisional and democratic governments, but met with a strong opposition in Spanish society after 1975 (Rubio-Varas et al 2018;Valentines & Macaya 2019). In Catalonia, the first nuclear power plant Vandellós-1 had come online in 1972 without any remarkable resistance (the construction began in 1967 as a core part of the capitalist-oriented economic policies of the dictatorship).…”

“…Examining social resistance to technology helps us to broaden the array of actors, spaces, practices, emotions and sociotechnical imaginaries that are involved in the processes of scientific negotiation and in the emergence of technological fields (Bauer 1995;Flam & King 2005;Gaudillière 2006;Jasanoff & Kim 2015). In previous works on the anti-nuclear movement in Spain and Portugal, I followed counter-culture activists and artists, entered into spaces like bars and dining rooms, perused underground fanzines and "do-it-yourself" manuals, experienced "antinuclear fun" and "emotions of protest," and came across a number of utopian visions, including technological landscapes crowded of low-tech gadgets powered by the sun (Valentines & Macaya 2019;Valentines 2021). Drawing on heterogeneous sources which range from professional journals and company archives to environmental magazines and underground leaflets, this research focuses now on how these "anti-nuclear" actors, spaces, practices and emotions participated in materializing new sociotechnical objects.…”

¿Revolución 4.0? Piedras y algoritmos en las protestas en Colombia (apuntes emergentes para un análisis sobre tecnología, política y violencia)

“…De un lado de la contienda y como parte de los dispositivos asociados a las experiencias colectivas de lucha contra la dominación, encontramos barricadas de piedras y adoquines, variados ingenios de sabotaje industrial, artilugios explosivos globales, neumáticos ardiendo sobre el asfalto, máscaras protectoras caseras, pancartas plásticas y megáfonos, o pequeñas publicaciones sobre "hágalo usted mismo" con instrucciones de primeros auxilios o con viñetas humorísticas haciendo sorna de las tecnologías de la violencia (Hazan, 2015;Fridlund, 2011;Tastevin, 2020;Duperrex y Le Meur, 2020;Valentines y Macaya, 2019). Del otro lado de la barricada, encontramos tecnologías estatales, policiales, militares y paramilitares, producto de la industria armamentística, la diplomacia internacional, los acuerdos comerciales, las inversiones financieras y la investigación científica.…”

Walls of Anxiety: The Iconography of Anti-NATO protests in Spain, 1981–6

“…Fun could easily familiarise concerns about a nuclear war among citizens. 63 Furthermore, dealing with complicated topics such as the possibility of a nuclear war through a sarcastic approach was more bearable along with the use of techniques from mass media and pop art that were had already been on display in Spanish art works on the Vietnam War during Late-Francoism. 64 In a complete subversion of biblical iconography, in the above-mentioned PCE's mural God/Uncle Sam is not surrounded by angels but by six black missiles, even though Spain had not been selected as a deployment site for nuclear missiles.…”