Abstract

The Meanings of Nuclear-Free: Exploring the  Conceptual Complexity of Pacific Antinuclear and Nuclear Free Movements

What does it mean to become “nuclear-free”? This paper understands “nuclear-free” as a powerful discourse— a constellation of meanings that constitutes and are constituted by social relations— to tease out the conceptual complexity of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movements (1970s—). Based on archival research and interviews with Pacific antinuclear activists in Hawai‘i, the Marshall Islands, Fiji, and New Zealand, I demonstrate such conceptual complexity by examining how the nuclear-free discourse is deeply rooted in indigenous sovereignty struggles that connect nuclear-free with notions and visions of 1) oppression-free, 2) sovereignty of the people (instead of the nation), and 3) healing of deep relations among human (especially women), land, ocean, and other life forms. Learning from how Pacific activists connected diverse issues under the nuclear-free discourse, this paper further argues that antinuclear activism in the Pacific is never only about “nuclear.” Instead, it mobilizes a more expansive and multifaceted framework centered on indigenous sovereignty.