Adriana
Petryna’s writings on the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster focus on the ways
in which biological citizenship came to supplant other systems of rights and
welfare between the populace and the government. She discusses the utter lack
of knowledge surrounding the impact of the disaster on those affected and how
this lead to a reframing of the ways in which citizens viewed their lives and
their government.
Petryna seems to argue that the
Soviet government’s cover up of how little knowledge they had about the impact
of radiation was a major factor in leaving people searching desperately for
answers. While the government’s lack of honesty about its knowledge of the
health effects was problematic in other arenas such as sending workers into
situations of high exposure, it seems to me that it did not play that large of
a role in the public quest for information. Whether or not they said they had
the information, the Soviet government (or really anyone else for that matter)
could not provide any answers to public questions about the role of radiation
in disease. The general confusion among the public about health effects would
exist regardless of what the government said if there was still no information
to be had.
Arguments about biological
citizenship made much more sense to me. In a system in which the people are
severely underpaid for work with serious impacts on their health, members of
that society are left with very few options. As the idea of a right to
compensation from the government develops, people begin to see desperately
needed options. The public’s investment in their eligibility for this
compensation is amplified by the fact that the eligibility requirements were
constantly changing. Many began to consider themselves deserving of government support
and tracking the broadening eligibility status was necessary to find out if
they would eventually receive that support.
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