Contesting danger: a new agenda for policy and scholarship on Central Asia

Western geopolitical discourse misrepresents and constructs Central Asia as an inherently and essentially dangerous place. This pervasive ‘discourse of danger’ obscures knowledge of the region, deforms scholarship and, because it has policy implications, actually endangers Central Asia. This article identifies how the region is made knowable to a US–UK audience through three mutually reinforcing dimensions of endangerment: Central Asia as obscure, oriental, and fractious. This is evidenced in the writings of conflict resolution and security analysts, the practices of governments, the activities of international aid agencies and numerous lurid films, documentaries and novels. The article first establishes the tradition of inscribing danger to Central Asia, in both academic and policy discourse, from the colonial experience of the nineteenth century through to the post‐Soviet transition and subsequent considerations of the region in terms of the war on terror. It considers several examples of this discourse of danger including the popular US TV drama about presidential politics, The West Wing, the policy texts of ‘Washingtonian security analysis’ and accounts of danger, insecurity and urban violence in the Ferghana Valley. It is argued that popular policy and academic texts are relatively consistent across the three dimensions of endangerment. This argument is demonstrated through a discussion of how policy‐making and practice is informed by this discourse of danger and of how the discourse of danger is contested within the region. The example of urban violence in Osh, Kyrgyzstan and Jalalabad, Afghanistan in 2010 demonstrates how opportunities to mitigate conflict may have been lost due to the distortions of this discourse of danger. It concludes by raising the challenge to policy‐makers, journalists and academics to contest this western geopolitical discourse and provide better accounts of how danger is experienced by Central Asians.     

Radiation as social relation

A new nuclear power station is currently being built in the Southwest of the UK at Hinkley Point. The construction of the cooling water system for Hinkley Point C is underway but there is controversy over the tunnelling required to install the huge pipes that will run for over 3 kilometres into the Bristol Channel. EDF, the operating company, want to deposit 600,000 tonnes of sediment on the far side of the Channel, at the licensed site for such disposal, the Cardiff Grounds. The Cardiff Grounds are in Wales and there is a public outcry at the prospect of the arrival of this English mud, and the concern that it might carry toxic sediment from the previous, far less regulated material deposits produced over the past 60 years by the adjoining stations at Hinkley Point A (now decommissioned) and Hinkley Point B (currently operational). Earlier disposal of sediment led to protests and a petition that triggered a debate in the Welsh Parliament. EDF have supplied evidence that levels of radiation in the mud are so low as to be not classed as radioactive under UK law. They offer comparisons with naturally occurring radiation: the levels of radiation in the mud would be 10,000 times less than an airline pilot's annual dose, 750 times less than the average dose received by a resident of Pembrokeshire due to naturally occurring radon, equivalent to eating 20 bananas a year. These comparisons do not convince local people. This paper explores the difficulties inherent in producing public trust in radiation measures. Radiation cannot be seen, smelt or felt. It must be detected through instruments, evaluated through calculations and interpreted by experts. Experts are often exasperated by the distinctions that people draw between natural and human-made radiation. Still, they also miss the point that most people approach radiation as a social, rather than a physical or chemical, relation. The political and social histories through which nuclear imaginaries are produced and reproduced shape understandings of toxicity in ways that lead people to place more trust in correlation than in causality.