UK nuclear colonialism: research and activism

Jane Gregory, Juley Howard, Lorna Richardson and Michael Terry from local American Peace Test group had been given permission by the Elders of the Western Shoshone Nation to walk on their sacred ancestral lands to stop nuclear testing.

Following their arrest and subsequent trial in Las Vegas, the Greenham and Aldermaston Women returned to Britain and organised meetings for Western Shoshone women to speak directly about British-American nuclear colonialism, environmental contamination and violation of their land, rights and sovereignty.  

In July 1993, 13 Greenham/Aldermaston Women were arrested for gate-crashing a Buckingham Palace Garden Party with visual materials that highlighted British nuclear testing and abuses against Western Shoshone rights and lands.When the women stood trial in Bow Street Court, they were supported by Western Shoshone Elder William Rosse Sr., who travelled to London and gave powerful testimony on this issue.

This web presents a range of research resources related to the history of UK nuclear bomb testing in the the Nevada Test Site as well as the long fight of the Western Shoshone against this and other assaults on their sovereign territories. It was established through an ongoing collaboration between the Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies and From Greenham to Nevada: Repression and Resistance to Nuclear Colonialism – an event series focused on education about this activist history and the continuing struggle against nuclear colonialism and its disproportionate impacts on Indigenous peoples.

People

• Ian Zabarte, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Liverpool, and Principal Man of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation
• Dr Lucia Brandi, Research AssociateLanguages, Cultures and Film
• Professor David Stirrup, Professor of American Literature and Indigenous Studies
• Dr Francesca Cavallo, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Kent, Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies