You are warmly invited to the Canberra launch of Dr Jessica Urwin’s book, Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia.  During the twentieth century, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear programs of numerous global powers. From uranium extraction to weapons testing, Australia's lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development and was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism. Aboriginal communities, bearing the brunt of these processes, persistently resisted, reclaiming their rights to Country and demanding reparations.

As Jessica Urwin shows, extraction, testing and waste disposal have caused incalculable physical, spiritual, and cultural harm to Aboriginal communities and lands. Tracking the colonial mechanisms Australia used to pursue nuclear industry, Urwin simultaneously highlights how Aboriginal peoples rejected and reshaped those same mechanisms. Contaminated Country reveals how Australia's nuclear past has been entangled with colonialism locally, nationally, and internationally.

Join us at Paperchain Bookstore to hear Jessica Urwin, author of Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia, in conversation with Ruth Morgan.

Free event, but bookings essential. This event is hosted by Paperchain Bookstore