Assembling the nuclear, decolonizing the heritage
ENThis chapter examines the practices of engagement with place and memory in and around the (former) nuclear town built in the 1970s to house workers of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) in what was then Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR). Exploring the growing number of memory projects produced by various actors inside and outside of the nuclear site, the chapter focuses on the heritage-making process performed by the local community through various, and often ephemeral, temporary, performative, or discursive, activities through which the nuclear past is assembled. From the autoethnographical perspective and by employing ethnographical fieldwork and interview methods, I am attempting to trace which actors, both human and nonhuman, what procedures, and what acts of translation and mediation are involved in this process. My argument is that in terms of coming to terms with Soviet colonial legacy, the ongoing and strengthening process of dealing with the nuclear past both reassembles the (former) nuclear community and may contribute to the definition and management of contested heritage at the national level. Keywords: nuclear, heritage, colonialism, Soviet, Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, Visaginas. [From the publication]
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