Nuclear Nomadologies: Curating an Inclusive Social History of the British Nuclear Test Veterans

Alexis-Martin, B, Perriman, Wesley and Alexander, Stephanie (2020) Nuclear Nomadologies: Curating an Inclusive Social History of the British Nuclear Test Veterans. Social History in Museums, 44. pp. 53-60. ISSN 1350-9551

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Abstract

Curation plays an important role in our public representation and understanding of nuclear warfare. This paper critiques the curation practices associated with British nuclear weapons testing, as a historic event that presents complex dynamics of inclusion, exclusion and power-play (Alexis-Martin, 2019, McLellan, 2017). Furthermore, it considers the ways that nuclear test veteran identities can be constructed, reproduced and contested within the exhibition space, through our exhibition “Over the Fence…to the other side of the world” at the Peace Museum, UK. Exhibitions of this nature have historically been subject to militarisms that rigidly present the state actors of nuclear warfare in selective ways, and that often neglect to feature individual veterans’ stories and nomadologies of nuclear weapon testing (Garoian, 2001; Deleuze et al, 1986). When thinking of their nomadologies, we draw on Deleuzian notions that their personal identities are not rooted in one place or limited to a single fixed worldview, and that the experience and depiction of being a nuclear test veteran is complex and diffuse.