Short abstract:

This oral communication aims at confronting different visions of stewardship as applied to nuclear waste, from technical management horizons to alternative roots unifying technical objects and their politics, enlightened by the frameworks of pragmatist social inquiries.

Long abstract:

Nuclear wastes cause long-term socio-technical issues and yet can be sometimes addressed solely by a vision of techno-scientific management. This latter reduced framing of understanding is compatible with the ambition of Earth systems sciences implying that a certain role of planetary stewardship can be attached to the responsibility of humanity, as a characteristic of the Anthropocenic period. This soft perspective of stewardship, applied on such problematic materials raising very challenging questions, can contribute to a depoliticized understanding of anthropocenic systems, and even contribute to an active depoliticization of future generations. Regarding long-term institutions and decision-making processes, several visions of political life coexist, but the simplest one is the absence of anticipation of political life related to these objects later. Such considerations are easily articulated with an Anthropocenic management of histories, materialities and externalities, always open to technical and informational management of issues, and can be reflected in a vision of stewardship. On the other hand, the terms of stewardship are also used by concerned communities, with intentions of long-term care of nuclear waste, opposed to its reduction to techno-scientific management. This oral communication will try to confront depoliticized horizons to deeper roots unifying technical objects and their politics, proposed by the frameworks of pragmatist social inquiry and of capacitation constructions of future civil society populations.