NUCLEAR SOCIETIES
NUCLEAR SOCIETIES
Sebastian Koa is a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter studying the temporalities and rhythms of Hinkley Point C, the UK’s first large-scale nuclear power plant to be built in over 30 years. He holds a Masters in Anthropocene Studies from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelors of Arts in Geography from the Unversity of Oxford. His Masters dissertation focused on yet another UK nuclear power plant – Sizewell C – and how nuclear infrastructures come to be understood as problematic in contemporary Britain.
Sebastian’s current research explores how nuclear infrastructures are approached and experienced as problems of time. Nuclear power plants like Hinkley Point C bring with them a myriad of unruly rhythms which intersects with and intervenes in the constitution of social, cultural, and political life. His research traces these rhythms, examining how questions of scale, tempo, duration, and speed can shape experiences of place and space. He builds on Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis as a central theoretical frame that holds together several strands of data collection: ethnography, participant observation, archival analysis, and semi-structured interviews.
