May 2009: Invited Lecture by Sulfikar Amir

In mid 2006, the Indonesian government announced a plan to build a new nuclear power plant geared towards meeting soaring demands for energy in the country. The government is determined that time was ripe for Indonesia to go nuclear. While discussions on adopting nuclear power are steadily gaining currency among high officials and political elites, it is simultaneously being contested by a broad anti-nuclear alliance consisting of multiple civil society groups. This organized resistance is driven by suspicions that the government does not possess adequate capacity to handle high-risk technology. Using combined approaches of STS and social movement studies, this presentation discusses the contestation of nuclear risk discourses between scientific experts and grassroots groups. In situating the paper within post-authoritarian Indonesia, observations will be made on how shifts towards democratic change have allowed civil society groups to develop civic epistemology resulting in popular risk assessment over the proposed nuclear power plant. This form of risk assessment becomes ammunition for anti-nuclear groups to challenge scientific risk calculations by state technocrats.