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SUMMARY:'Growing up nuclear': Childhood memories of nuclear power in Cold 
 War Finland - Tiia Sahrakorpi (Aalto University)
DTSTART:20240305T170000Z
DTEND:20240305T180000Z
UID:TALK209644@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr AM Price
DESCRIPTION:In January 2023\, Finland’s fourth nuclear power plant was f
 inally completed after a twenty-year delay\, albeit plagued with system an
 d technical faults. The Finnish government’s _National Energy and Climat
 e Strategy for 2030_ report sets out their strategy to transition from coa
 l and peat for heating to small scale nuclear. The government would have b
 een further bolstered with the Energiateollisuus (Association of Finnish E
 nergy Industries) report in 2023 that positive attitudes towards nuclear h
 ad grown to 68 percent. Yet\, the roots of this “nuclear renaissance” 
 and positive attitudes towards nuclear energy has not been placed under mu
 ch historical scrutiny.\n\nSince 2021 I have been working as a postdoctora
 l researcher on a project titled ‘The Finnish Technological Sublime: Per
 ceptions\, imagination and self-representations of large-scale energy proj
 ects\, 1928-2020’. The project has three focus areas to investigate the 
 memories and imaginations of ordinary people concerning daily life close t
 o large-scale energy infrastructure\; historicise the role of democratic a
 gencies in the planning and building of power plants\; and to analyse the 
 nexus between gender\, memory\, the self\, and energy infrastructure. Over
  the course of this project\, I have collected forty-five oral history int
 erviews and consulted material deposited in the Finnish Literature Society
 \, Urho Kekkonen Archives\, National Archives\, and Central Archives for F
 innish Business Records (ELKA). \n\nOne of the central concerns of the pro
 ject has been to trace the development of Finnish perceptions of democracy
  in the Cold War period in relation to large-scale nuclear energy infrastr
 uctural development. The first nuclear power plant was ordered and made wi
 th the Soviets. The paper will focus on the intimate ways in which people 
 use energy infrastructure to perform their sense of trust in the governmen
 t\, illustrating the delicate balance between labour and the state. In doi
 ng so\, I argue that 1979 was an important turning point not only in chall
 enging “nuclear exceptionalism” after the Three Mile Island accident\,
  but provided a politically safer context for Finns to express their conce
 rns\, worries\, and expectations of Finland’s nuclear and technopolitica
 l future. \n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 3\, Cripps Court\, Magdalene College
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