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Spectres of Seppo: the afterlives of Finland's nuclear waste experts
Author(s) -
Ialenti Vincent
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of the royal anthropological institute
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1467-9655
pISSN - 1359-0987
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9655.13247
Subject(s) - technocracy , futures contract , nexus (standard) , value (mathematics) , sociology , aesthetics , history , law , political science , art , engineering , computer science , business , finance , politics , embedded system , machine learning
Abstract This article examines how Finland's nuclear waste repository safety assessment experts summoned memories of Seppo: a deceased colleague whose ‘spectre’ was said to still ‘haunt’ their workplace. First, it tracks how Seppo appeared in predecessor parables: cautionary tales told about his death, which conveyed value judgements about how experts ought to act, engage, and aspire. Second, it explores how Seppo's long‐time ‘right‐hand man’ Gustav still felt haunted by his colleague's affective intensities, scientific vision, and sharp tongue. This led Gustav to prod his workmates to reconsider how they modelled Finland's ecosystems many millennia into the future. Studying this ethnographically revealed how traces of Seppo's past life infused living experts with emotions, opened them to alternative futures, and spurred them to rethink their professional values. This article concludes by introducing expert afterlives as a temporal, epistemic, and affective nexus that can shape how technocratic projects are organized and how expert knowledge is made.