Placing the intangible: Space, nuclear power and social sciences

Résumé En

The revival of interest in nuclear power since 2022 relies on multiple spatial promises, such as expanding nuclear energy to unequipped countries or developing new types of reactors for isolated and remote communities. Researchers delved into the interactions between space and the nuclear technologies since the early 1950s. However, we still lack a comprehensive review of this literature. To fill these gaps, we conducted a comprehensive and systematic review of 205 papers, using a mixed methods design. We target three objectives: identifying potential biases in the methods applied and in the chosen case studies, discussing the scientific agendas that motivate these research, and distinguishing the characteristics of nuclear/space interactions. Results indicate the existence of thematic and geographic blind spots in the literature. Researchers have focused on a reduce number of highly visible and deeply politicized sites. These works also overemphasized European and North American countries, thus invisiblizing the role of the ‘global south’ in sustaining this industry. Using bibliometric data, we demonstrate that the community of scholars working on the spatial dimensions of nuclear power remains fragmented. We identified seven scientific agendas motivating research on nuclear/space relations. Results also highlight eight features in the literature, defining nuclear places as space of managed secrecy, uncertainty, strategic resources, spectacularization, containment, scale collision, coloniality and (inter)dependent communities. Finally, we argue that future research will need to rely on more provincialized approaches and suggest potential avenues for future works.