Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T14:10:37.385Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Atomic Lands: Risks on a Nuclear Frontier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2019

Abena Dove Osseo-Asare
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Get access

Summary

This chapter considers how Ghanaian citizens experience nuclear power in the Kwabenya environs. It establishes the setting of Atomic Junction, through archival evidence of territorial disputes in a borderland area home to Guan, Akan, and Ga families. From the 1960s, Ghanaian scientists, inspired by Nkrumah’s grand plan settled in the area to manage the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. While they did not obtain the GHARR-1 until 1994, they led local families to believe that a reactor was installed around 1966. Given this widespread misunderstanding, the chapter asks how have people living near the reactor interpreted life on a nuclear frontier, or what Joe Masco has termed the “nuclear borderlands”? The chapter interprets how Ghanaians in Haatso, Kwabenya and other villages near the nuclear exclusion zone relate their experience with Atomic Lands (i.e. GAEC property) to the advent of nuclear spaces around the world where the potential for radioactivity excludes populations. It stresses the greater risk posed by petrol stations on the Haatso-Atomic Road, culminating in the 2017 explosion of a petrol tanker and a mushroom cloud at Atomic Junction.

Type
Chapter
Information
Atomic Junction
Nuclear Power in Africa after Independence
, pp. 139 - 169
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×