Introduction: Tracing the Nuclear Relations of (De)Coloniality

Abstract

In “Native America: The Political Economy of Radioactive Colonialism,” Winona LaDuke and Ward Churchill posit that colonialism has a radioactive quality: everything it does cannot be undone, and in its doing, it imperils “everyone alive and who will be alive.” Reflecting on this pivotal essay 40 years since its publication, this introduction proposes the nuclear relations of coloniality as a way to understand the relations between ostensibly distinct occurrences of and experiences within radioactive empires across geographic, temporal, and cultural contexts. Tracing the intercultural resonance of nuclear materialities, we seek to develop a more expansive understanding of the global interconnectedness of nuclear coloniality and the transnational networks of solidarity and resistance that emerged in its wake. We draw on Lou Cornum’s concept of the “irradiated international” to better attend to the unexpected formations that are produced through nuclear (de)coloniality and highlight the potential for literature, the visual arts, and other creative mediums to document these histories and allow alternative futures to be imagined.