“We are a nuclear community”: The Ethical, Political Economic, and Social Relations of Canadian Nuclear Waste Siting

Abstract

Nuclear waste poses unique challenges that transcend everyday temporalities and shape socio‐political and economic relations across temporal, spatial, and epistemic dimensions. This paper draws from ethnographic research in Canada, to understand how the political economy, power relations, and ethical landscapes of a specific “nuclear community” inform perception and engagement with a “community‐driven” process to permanently store high‐level radioactive waste. The local nuclear industry has effectively fostered deep political economic and cultural ties to the community, resulting in a sense of nuclear pride within an exclusive and cohesive nuclear community in Bruce County. This paper examines what it means to be a nuclear community, the ways in which people identify with being a nuclear community, and how this identification shapes the ethical landscapes that inform how local communities in the Bruce region engage with the nuclear waste siting process.