The Politics of Invisibility: Public Knowledge about Radiation Health Effects after Chernobyl by Olga Kuchinskaya (review)

Olga Kuchinskaya concisely explains the policy developments surrounding the Chernobyl site and the conflicting priorities between local, national, and international power players. She focuses attention on Belarus, at the time of the disaster a Soviet republic, and the governmental responses over time to the threat of contamination emanating from Chernobyl. Kuchinskaya uses the changing concerns over radiation to explore how the long-term health consequences of one of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophes evolved into an invisible subject downplayed by international and national experts. Her analytical model applies not only to Chernobyl but might assist researchers in understanding the public discourses found around other disasters, such as Fukushima.

Kuchinskaya starts her examination by describing in her first two chapters the production of invisibility in Belarus and the complacency of local populations. She argues that the limited opportunities in post–Soviet Union Belarus for public debate about the dangers of radiation constricted dialogue and any critiques of governmental policies. Consequently, Kuchinskaya claims that affected populations lacked substantial understanding of the risks posed by radiation. In her second chapter, she uses interviews from residents living in contaminated areas to demonstrate contrasting levels of awareness and concern for radiation exposure. Her third chapter explains the layers of invisibility and their historical contexts that she states now envelop not only the site but also the surrounding region and its inhabitants. Alongside the evolution of invisibility, she describes the phenomenon of hypervisibility used in the 1990s by political opposition groups to counter Belarusian governmental efforts to rehabilitate the contaminated areas, at least in the media.

The second half of the book focuses on the growing conflicts between experts over the long-term radiation consequences of Chernobyl. Local health officials increasingly confronted resistance from international experts whose claims minimized the lasting effects of the disaster on populations. An authoritarian national government more concerned about ideology added to the pressures felt by local Belarusian scientists. A chapter explores the roles of international actors, particularly the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization, in supporting Soviet scientists in their denials about the significance of the accident. The rhetoric deployed by international experts minimized the health risks associated with Chernobyl and contributed to its invisibility. The opinions offered by these world organizations allowed the Belarusian government to present the accident as a solvable economic problem, not a devastating long-term health disaster.

The final chapter reviews the Belarusian national research agenda, or lack thereof, around the site and affected populations. According to Kuchinskaya, the anemic state of science in Belarus demonstrated the priorities of the government. These conditions contributed to the production of invisibility. She claimed that research was reframed to match the economic and political needs of the state, resulting in the subversion of scientific knowledge production. Furthermore, Kuchinskaya argues that much of the scientific data collected in Belarus remained theoretically focused and not applied, minimizing the health threats posed by radiation.

Kuchinskaya presents a compelling argument. She relies on interviews with scientists, government bureaucrats, health care workers, members of international organizations, and local residents. She supplements these sources with institutional reports and examples drawn from media coverage. Her analysis demonstrates the degree to which national and international experts could redefine the scope and nature of a disaster’s consequences to the point of reshaping scientific research and protection practices. This interplay resulted in Chernobyl being rendered invisible and local populations being indifferent to the dangers to which they had been exposed. Beyond the Chernobyl tragedy, Kuchinskaya offers a methodological approach to understanding the public discourse and power relations found at Fukushima, or any disaster site. Invisibility lowers public concerns and leads to complacency regarding dangers that should raise alarms.

An important work in understanding the multiple aftermaths of a disaster, Kuchinskaya’s book gives researchers a new perspective and approach to examining policy creation in response to accidents. The strategies developed and deployed...