CFP: Claiming authority, producing standards: The IAEA and the history of radiation protection
Call for papers
Claiming
authority, producing standards:
The
IAEA and the history of radiation protection
Organizers:
Martin Kusch, Department of Philosophy, University of
Vienna
Maria Rentetzi, Lise Meitner Fellow (FWF), Department of
Philosophy, University of Vienna
Venue:
University of Vienna, Institute for Philosophy
Dates: 3-4 June
2016
Keynote speakers:
Angela Creager,
Thomas M. Siebel
Professor in the History of Science, Department of History, Princeton
University
Soraya
de Chadarevian, Professor,
Department of History and the Institute for Society and Genetics, University of
California, Los Angeles.
Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Professor of History,
Department of History, Oregon State University
Deadline for
submission: 31 January 2016
This workshop seeks to bring together scholars working on
the history of radiation protection and the role of the International Atomic
Energy Agency in shaping, standardizing, and controlling this field. We are
interested in papers employing historical, philosophical, or sociological
methods in order to investigate the notion of standardization as political, and
to critically analyze those legal, political, and diplomatic interests that
have shaped radiation protection standards in all major areas of radiation
exposure. We wish to focus especially (but
not exclusively) on the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency as
scientific, metrological and – above all -- political organization responsible
for (inter alia) the standardization and development of codes of practices in
radiotherapy and diagnostics; for supporting the implementation in hospitals
and calibration laboratories; for producing codes of conduct on the safety of
radioactive waste and spend fuel management; for providing advisory services to
all United Nations Members States; and for leading the international coordination
of major institutions in the field such as the International Radiation
Protection Association and the World Health Organization.
Radiation protection—the science and practices of
preventing harmful effects resulting from ionizing radiation to humans and the
environment—has a long history. Since the discovery of radioactivity more than
a century ago, scientists have attempted to introduce radiation protection
standards. Such standards are specifications and criteria for the evaluation of
biological effects of radiation to human tissues and of the harmful effects to
the environment. In the early days, producing such standards faced many
challenges: how to define the appropriate unit of radiation; how to invent
suitable measurement devices; how to detect, and agree on, the effects of
radiation on biological systems; or how to settle the acceptable risk to
radiation exposure. The evolution of standards, and the controversies that
emerged, reflect the complexity of scientists' collaborative production and dissemination
of what eventually comes to be considered as objective and reliable knowledge.
It also reveals the powerful role of those scientific institutions that assumed
the task to create these standards. From the British Roentgen Society, and its
first recommendations to users of x-ray technologies in 1915, to the
establishment of the field of "health physics" at the Met Lab of the
University of Chicago during World War II, scientific institutions enforced new
attitudes towards acceptable risk, permissible radiation doses, and radiation
protection.
After World War II the rapid
development and adoption of new medical technologies -- such as the radioisotope teletherapy units and the development
of nuclear industry -- posed numerous challenges in the field of radiation
protection. During the era of what has been known as “the peaceful uses” of
nuclear energy, the IAEA gradually took the lead in the field of radiation
protection. At the same time it plays a
crucial role in an exceptionally broad range of scientific and political
matters: the establishment of nuclear industry worldwide, the provision of
technical assistance, the education of generations of scientists in nuclear
matters all over the world, the exercise of political power in order to safeguard
the use of nuclear energy and to control the several national nuclear programs.
Today, the renewed interest in nuclear power plants and the
use of advanced medical technologies pose new challenges to the field of
radiation protection. IRPA's 2012 conference theme, "Living with
Radiation, Engaging with Society" leaves no doubt that radiation
protection is indeed a social and political concern.
We would like to make visible the tensions between politics
and science in the field of radiation protection. Thus we invite papers
primarily on the following topics:
1.
the notion of standardization
as a theoretical framework for understanding the set of practices that surround
acts of radiation protection;
2.
the history of radiation
protection in relation to major scientific and international organizations
with our main focus on the role of the IAEA;
3.
standards, radiation units, and
notions of radiation risk: What have been the changing notions of risk in
relation to radiation? How have these notions shaped scientists' ideas about
standards and radiation dosimetry?
4.
the collaboration between IAEA
and WHO: What kinds of research
agendas have shaped the IAEA/WHO collaboration in the field of radiation
protection?
5.
the role of international
organizations in the production and circulation of knowledge about the
effects of radiation on humans and the environment;
6.
the handling and transportation
of radioactive materials and waste: What
kind of diplomatic issues have arisen in relation to radioactive disposal for
example? How have these issues shaped environmental policy making and public
opinions around radiation protection?
Please send extended abstracts of 500 words and a one page
cv to mrentetz@vt.edu by January 31,
2016.
--
Maria Rentetzi
Lise Meitner Fellow
1010 Wien, Universitätsstraße 7 (NIG)
T: +43-1-4277-46425
eFax: +43-1-4277-846425
Associate Professor
National Technical University of Athens
Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
School of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences
Zografou Campus, Zografou 15780
Athens, Greece
tel. +30 210 6106537 , fax +30 210 7721618
Email: mrentetz@vt.eduhttp://users.ntua.gr/rentetzi/