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Between ‘Greatness’ and ‘Ignorance’
The Transition to Nuclear Power in Turkey
in Anthropology of the Middle East
Author:
Sezin Topçu
Sezin Topçu
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique sezin.topcu@ehess.fr
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Abstract
Focusing on Turkey's nuclearisation process, which has accelerated over the past decade, this article examines the historical and contemporary relationships that the country's political decision-makers maintain with risk, the environment and health and ecological disasters. While the transition to nuclear power in the post-Fukushima period is not a dynamic specific to Turkey, it nevertheless operates, in the Turkish case, in a particular geographic, energy and political context. On the one hand, Turkey is a highly seismic country that heavily depends on its neighbours for energy and, on the other, is experiencing a creeping political authoritarianism. This article focuses on the dynamics and specificities of this post-disaster nuclear transition, which will be analysed here as ‘serene nuclearism’, positioned as the polar opposite of ‘reflexive modernisation’, as theorised by Ulrich Beck.
Contributor Notes
Sezin Topçu is a historian and sociologist of technology, risk and social movements. Since 2011, she has been Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and a member of the Centre d'Étude des Mouvements Sociaux. In her research she focuses on energy, environment and reproductive health issues, including those related to anti-nuclear protest movements, nuclear controversies, post-disaster management and energy transitions. She is the author of La France nucléaire: L'art de gouverner une technologie contestée (2013), as well as several journal articles and scientific chapters on these topics. Email: sezin.topcu@ehess.fr