Sponsor
Duke Islamic Studies Center
Co-Sponsor(s)
African and African American Studies (AAAS); Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES); Duke University Middle East Studies Center
Securing the Atom: Radiation Terrorism and U.S.–Ethiopia Relations
Friday, April 10,
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Speaker(s): Marit Østebø
In this talk, Marit Tolo Østebø examines a U.S.-initiated radiological security program designed to prevent radiological terrorism and its implementation within Ethiopia's emerging cancer-care infrastructure. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research conducted between 2022 and 2025, Østebø explores the suspicions, negotiations, and forms of resistance the program provoked among Ethiopian actors.
The presentation shows how radiotherapy, security regimes, and geopolitical power relations become entangled within global oncology. The Ethiopian case reveals how nuclear history, competing notions of exceptionalism, and questions of authority and sovereignty shape what often is assumed to be an apolitical and benevolent domain of cancer care and research. In doing so, it also challenges portrayals of African states as passive recipients of international security and development interventions.
The presentation shows how radiotherapy, security regimes, and geopolitical power relations become entangled within global oncology. The Ethiopian case reveals how nuclear history, competing notions of exceptionalism, and questions of authority and sovereignty shape what often is assumed to be an apolitical and benevolent domain of cancer care and research. In doing so, it also challenges portrayals of African states as passive recipients of international security and development interventions.
