Paper short abstract:

Race and space were two key elements of apartheid; a system that a white minority attempted to secure by, among other means, the development of nuclear energy and a nuclear weapons programme. This required more complex and designated spaces and spatial practices; further entrenching apartheid.

Paper long abstract:

Besides racism, spatiality was another key feature of apartheid. The meaning of the word apartheid is apart-ness indicating a spatial dimension. Separate development, Bantustans and the so-called Group Areas Act were just three illustrations of apartheid South Africa's spatial practices and discourses. White South African imaginaries also included space and expanses. Similarly, security and securing white minority rule took on a spatial dimension. For the purpose of this paper, the spatial dimension and the spatialising of apartheid South Africa's nuclear ambitions are presented and analysed. Four illustrative case are presented, namely the establishment of Vastrap (the country's nuclear weapons test site) in the Kalahari Desert, the location of the 1979 nuclear test in the south Atlantic in conjunction with Israel, and the sitings of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant (north of Cape Town on the Atlantic seaboard) and Vaalputs (the country's nuclear waste disposal site) in the semi-desert area called Namaqualand (now in the Northern Cape province). These cases are, amongst other aspects, illustrative of the construction of landscapes of risk, nuclear geographies, sacrifice zones, landscapes of secrecy, and the spatiality of tehno-ethno-nationalism. The paper intends to draw on archival resources pertaining to the country's nuclear energy and weapons programme, as well as material such as legislation, practices and imaginaries of the apartheid era.