Project

The Nevada Movement: Trans-Indigenous Antinuclear Activism and the End of the Cold War

Program

ACLS Fellowship Program

Department

American Studies

Abstract

This project centers Indigenous aesthetics to reframe the end of Cold War in context of the Nevada movement, a transnational alliance of Western Shoshone and Kazakh activists that succeeded in ending nuclear weapons testing in both the United States and the Soviet Union. Drawing on archival sources, the project demonstrates how shared experiences of environmental injustice integrated Western Shoshone and Kazakh activists into an epistemic community that reinforced their activist solidarity and commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons testing. This solidarity is further evidenced by visual and textual materials that document the circulation of cultural knowledge and ritual influencing their mutual actions. Ultimately, “The Nevada Movement” shows that Indigenous environmental activism must be seen as a key factor in ending the nuclear Cold War.