Spatial imaginaries of the rural in the anti-nuclear energy movement in Wendland

Abstract

More often than not, rural regions carry the burdens of energy infrastructure. Where urban areas are understood as the centres of modernism, the rural becomes and is continuously reproduced as an energy producing periphery (Franquesa, 2018). Equally, infrastructural developments in rural areas are often highly contested, also in relation to renewable energy developments (Woods, 2003; Phadke, 2011). In this paper, I return to the hight of nuclear energy development in 1970s Germany to understand how spatial imaginaries and socio-technical imaginaries play a crucial part in the contestation of energy infrastructure development. I argue that what the rural is and what it should be, in other words the spatial imaginaries of rurality, are at the heart of the anti-nuclear energy movement in Wendland at this time.

The socio-technical imaginaries of the nuclear were one of the key fronts of contestation throughout the anti-nuclear energy movement surrounding Gorleben. Carving out their own spaces for expert knowledge production was one of the ways in which the movement was able to establish legitimacy at the very beginning and engage those from within the region in the contestation of the nuclear. Second, spatial imaginaries of the rural were central to the pro-nuclear framing of nuclear energy development as a positive step for an economically backward region. In turn, the resistance against these developments built on their own imaginaries of rural Wendland to frame their resistance and taking ownership of these spatial imaginaries.