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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how silence shapes the intergenerational life of nuclear history within families affected by Soviet nuclear testing in Kazakhstan.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how silence shapes the intergenerational life of nuclear history within families affected by Soviet nuclear testing in Kazakhstan. Based on ethnographic fieldwork near the former Semipalatinsk Test Site, it focuses on what remains unsaid about radiation, illness, and responsibility, and why such non-saying persists across generations.

Rather than treating silence as an absence of memory or knowledge, the paper approaches it as an active social, ethical, and affective practice. Family members often avoid explicit discussion of nuclear exposure, instead conveying historical knowledge through bodily memories, everyday precautions, and partial narratives. Silence allows people to manage fear, uncertainty, and stigma while sustaining family cohesion in contexts marked by unresolved harm and limited state acknowledgment. Silence also shows how do affected communities come to terms with the nuclear history.

The paper also reflects on the ethical challenges of researching histories that are intimate yet unsayable. It asks when anthropological attention to silence can deepen understanding, and when probing risks disrupting fragile forms of care. By viewing silence as a meaningful mode of historical engagement rather than absence, the paper contributes to anthropological debates on memory, secrecy, and intergenerational transmission, showing how communities live with unfinished and politically sensitive histories.