Collecting data on a global scale: from local to international and back again
In the atomic world ushered in by the detonation of the first atomic bombs over Japan in 1945, radioactive strontium (or strontium-90), a by-product of nuclear explosions, soon emerged as a substance of popular, political, and strategic concern. This article considers three data collection programs...
Tallennettuna:
| Julkaisussa: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/statsoc, |
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| Päätekijä: | |
| Aineistotyyppi: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Kieli: | Anglais |
| Julkaistu: |
Statistique et société
2025
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| Aiheet: | |
| Linkit: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Yhteenveto: | In the atomic world ushered in by the detonation of the first atomic bombs over Japan in 1945, radioactive strontium (or strontium-90), a by-product of nuclear explosions, soon emerged as a substance of popular, political, and strategic concern. This article considers three data collection programs that established strontium-90 as a global problem while representing different strategies to construct the global dimension — a secret data collection program, code-named Project Sunshine, conducted by the US Atomic Energy Commission taking advantage of the US diplomatic and military networks around the globe; a data collection project organized by the UN at an inter-governmental level; and the Baby Tooth Survey, mounted by a group of concerned citizens and public-minded scientists in St. Louis, Missouri, to reconstruct the effects of the world-wide weapons-testing activity on the local children. All three data collection programs were traversed by cold war tensions but ultimately helped to turn the tide on nuclear weapons testing and led to the signing of the first partial atomic test ban treaty in 1963. While the single projects have already received historical attention, viewed together they invite us to rethink the categories of the «local» and the «global» as articulated around the problem of global fallout. |
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