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Année 2 – Séance 7 – 30 avril 2025 – Christopher Hill (Associate professor in History – University of South Wales) – “Decolonising Christmas: Nuclear Heritage on Kiritimati in the Central Pacific”

Attention changement de date et nouveau lien de visio : mercredi 30 avril 2025 – intégralement en visio (7h-9h, heure de Tahiti ou 19h-21h, heure de Paris, CET) : https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/93747872862?pwd=ZndDYlRuQnNkU21qRWZvSnBUd203QT09

Présentation de l’intervenant : Dr Christopher R. Hill is Associate Professor of History at the University of South Wales. His recent research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), has explored the multifaceted role of imperialism across the cycle of nuclear development in Britain, from uranium extraction in Namibia and South Africa to nuclear weapons tests in Australia and the Pacific. Chris is Principal Investigator for the Office for Veterans’ Affairs project: ‘An Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans’.

Résumé : Kiritimati, a phonetic translation of ‘Christmas’, pronounced Ke-ree-see-ma-see, is the world’s largest coral reef atoll. A member of the Line Islands in the mid-Pacific, the atoll belongs to the ocean nation of Kiribati (Ke-ree-bas), which gained independence from Britain in 1979. Between 1957 and 1962, the atoll hosted the British and American nuclear test operations, ‘Grapple’ and ‘Dominic’. During this time, it was home to c.250 islanders, most of whom identified as ‘I-Kiribati’ (‘I’ = ‘ee’). This chapter explores how island commemoration of the tests and their legacies has been shaped by colonial-era perspectives and relations. It asks whether it is possible to ‘decolonise Christmas’: to develop an islander model of nuclear heritage, distinct from British influence over the atoll. While islanders have been invested in British heritage practices, this chapter highlights other connections and identities. By focusing on island ecology, archaeology and culture, it suggests a more robust, urgent nuclear heritage is possible, capable of speaking to the c.7000 islanders who live on the atoll today. Such a heritage is crucial to islander knowledge of health and the environment, particularly when Kiritimati’s habitat is under existential threat from climate crisis.

Lecture préalable : Christopher Hill, “Decolonising Christmas: Nuclear Heritage on Kiritimati in the Central Pacific”, chapter in a forthcoming volume on nuclear cultural heritage with University of London Press.