2025/12/01 by Eunsil Shin · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature #Water Governance and Infrastructure
paper · doi:10.3167/ee.2025.550204
openalex publication_date 2025/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/12/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract Could piles of radioactive soil bags be regarded as a “gift” to future generations? Based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Japan between 2018 and 2019 in a region that is haunted by remnants of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, I explore how the radiant promise of nuclear energy turned into a catastrophe. In following the contaminated soil bags that contain unfiltered isotopes and have unimaginably long lifespans, I consider the notions of “ecological inheritance” and “accursed share” to reflect on the arbitrary nature of the bags in the way that they oscillate between gifts and curses. In so doing, I propose the semi-permanent characteristics of nuclear matters shape and reshape temporal and spatial horizons regarding the futurity of the disaster.