Short abstract:

Based on on-going research on very long-term storage infrastructures (LESLIE) related to five types of risks (nuclear waste, CO2 capture, seed banks, data storage and museum reserves), the presentation will question the role of these long-term infrastructures in a context of permacrisis.

Long abstract:

Western societies are characterized by a globalized economy and an increasingly rapid circulation of goods, services, and information. Paradoxically, we are simultaneously witnessing initiatives that, on the contrary, aim to immobilize certain goods - material and immaterial - for very long periods, while allowing them to be put back into circulation at any time, according to a principle of reversibility. These practices are a response to various risks now identified as major: loss of biodiversity, climate change, massive loss of digital data, loss of heritage artwork, storage of nuclear waste, etc.

This presentation is based on an on-going research on very long-term storage infrastructures (LESLIE) related to five types of risks (nuclear waste, CO2 capture, seed banks, data storage and museum reserves) and how they are endowed with qualities that allow both the conservation of what is sheltered and ensure, at all times, the conditions for their reuse. The analysis of these infrastructures should make it possible to bring to light the way in which societies project themselves into a secular (or even multi-century) future and how they set up institutional mechanisms allowing for their governance and maintenance in the very long term. Ironically, these infrastructures are, in their turn, subject to a changing and uncertain environment. Designed to shelter material and immaterial goods in the very long term, they are in turn subject to what they are supposed to protect against (climatic disasters, terrorist attacks, etc).