The Anthropocene and the End of Nuclear Disaster: Normalizing the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

ABSTRACT

This article places the concept of disaster in critical dialogue with that of the Anthropocene, which introduces new imaginaries that negatively affect the governance of crises like nuclear accidents. I argue that tropes surrounding the Anthropocene can depict certain events as apocalyptic calamities while also portraying other events as mere “incidents” that do not warrant such labeling. I explore how specific narratives around the Anthropocene legitimize some forms of environmental harm as more important than other threats. This process creates a hierarchization of catastrophes and normalizes certain hazards as less important than others. More specifically, I claim that the very concept of a nuclear catastrophe is at risk of “disappearing” within the Anthropocene. Using ethnographic data based on the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which happened in Japan, I focus on three popular tropes associated with the Anthropocene that normalize the consequences of nuclear accidents: the figure of the global threat, the disappearance of the idea of pristine nature, and the promotion of resilience and adaptation to new realities. I conclude by reflecting on the broader implications of how Anthropocene discourse shapes which disasters matter and which are relegated to the status of distant, forgettable accidents.