Join AANZEHN members Jessica Urwin and Ruth Morgan at Paperchain Bookstore in Canberra from 6pm on Thursday 24 September to discuss Jess’s new book, Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia.

Contaminated Country explores how, during the twentieth century Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear programs of numerous global powers. From uranium extraction to weapons testing, Australia’s lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development and was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism. Aboriginal communities, bearing the brunt of these processes, persistently resisted, reclaiming their rights to Country and demanding reparations.

As Jess and Ruth will explore through this conversation, extraction, testing and waste disposal have caused incalculable physical, spiritual, and cultural harm to Aboriginal communities and lands. Tracking the colonial mechanisms Australia used to pursue nuclear industry, Contaminated Country simultaneously highlights how Aboriginal peoples rejected and reshaped those same mechanisms, revealing how Australia’s nuclear past has been entangled with colonialism locally, nationally, and internationally.

For more information on the conversation, or to register for free, click here. Registrations are limited.