The Politics of Invisibility ─ Public Knowledge About Radiation Health Effects After Chernobyl

Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seenwas Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere,especially in Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter ofits territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive falloutwas largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like noncontaminated ones. Itcould be known only through constructed representations of it. In The Politics ofInvisibility, Olga Kuchinskaya explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl,describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. Her analysis shedsvaluable light on how we deal with other modern hazards -- toxins or global warming -- that arelargely imperceptible to the human senses.

Kuchinskaya describes the production ofinvisibility of Chernobyl's consequences in Belarus -- practices that limit public attention toradiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiologicalcontamination requires infrastructural solutions, she argues, the production and propagation ofinvisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from redefining the scope and nature of theaccident's consequences to reshaping research and protection practices.

Kuchinskaya finds vast fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successfulefforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl's consequences at different levels -- among affectedpopulations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production ofinvisibility, she argues, is a function of power relations.

Olga Kuchinskaya is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh.