The Mapping Nuclear Legacies symposium, ostensibly about nuclear weapons, was genuinely about something much deeper: the human cost of nuclear policy and the pressing need to change our relationship with these weapons of mass destruction. While the technical and political aspects of atomic weapons were a given, the most potent storyline was not scientific or strategic — it was human.
Throughout the numerous testimonies, presentations, and reflections, three overarching themes emerged: the interrelatedness of people across space and generations, the moral imperative of carrying forward survivors’ narratives, and the frequently obscured impact of nuclear testing.
We discussed the many groups devastated by nuclear violence. We discussed how to put an end to it. We even discussed the logic on which this violence is premised and why it flourishes. Ultimately, however, the premise of the symposium was that we are an interconnected people. We have different lived experiences but are ultimately all the same: human. We yearn for human connection, interaction, and belonging. We possess the same emotions and feel the same apprehension, the same jubilation, the same sorrow.
The existence of nuclear weapons directly contradicts this truth. The logic of the atomic weapons system — deterrence, annihilation, supremacy — depends on negating our common humanity. When we discuss “mutually assured destruction,” it is oftentimes in the abstract as a chillingly detached dogma, but the truth is immensely personal. As Shiro Suzuki, the current mayor of Nagasaki, articulated at the symposium, his parents could have been killed in the 1945 atomic bombing — a testament to the fact that this history is not entirely in the past. It resides in people’s bodies and memories today.
This ongoing impact was articulated by the other survivors and descendants of survivors, from communities in Japan to the Marshall Islands to Indigenous territories in the US. Mayor Suzuki, for example, remarked that the suffering endured in Japan encourages him to advocate for others elsewhere: those in the Marshall Islands, those of Yakama Nation — the entire world, which is all at once threatened by the nuclear complex. He recognizes a shared vulnerability — hence, his admirable peace-making efforts. He was one of numerous at the conference who vividly conceived of one interconnected people.
City leaders have embraced the peace advocate role because their local constituents are immediately and directly in harm’s way, often the ultimate targets of nuclear weapons. These leaders employ educational programs, history displays, memorial ceremonies, and lobbying to cultivate a “culture of peace.” Like Mayor Suzuki, local leaders understand how nuclear violence transcends borders, generations, race, and nationality. Thus, there is more to cities than their vulnerability to nuclear weaponry. They exemplify the enduring humanity of seemingly different peoples. These urban spaces attract varying backgrounds. Urban life cultivates a sense of connectedness that surpasses more primordial forms of relatedness.
Building stronger and more intimate bonds would hinder the disastrous effects of nuclear weapons. Indeed, it would reduce our propensity to utilize weapons of mass destruction (WOMD), as we would recognize the humanity of other nations. That said, the transcendence of humanity would help hinder oppression in all forms – warfare, interpersonal racism, de jure discrimination, and more – as humanity becomes increasingly cosmopolitan.
Constructing an understanding of this transcendence requires ethical storytelling. To genuinely build peace and prevent future atrocities, we must center the voices of those most harmed – without replicating the harm in the process. One of the most startling realizations from the symposium was the degree to which well-intentioned academics and journalists continually retraumatize survivors by insisting they relive their stories. So many people, especially those whose voices have been historically silenced – opt for silence, not because their stories are irrelevant, but because conveying them is too painful. Importantly, we must amplify their voices, not merely their stories.
Nonetheless, it is not enough to “amplify.” We must ask how we are telling stories, who’s telling them, and why. Engagement protocols and long-term community partnerships are not optional, they are essential. As noted by Benetick Maddison of the Marshallese Educational Initiative (MEI), the shift is already underway: away from the extraction of testimonies and toward making space for younger generations to process and redefine inherited trauma on their terms. This move also respects the agency of those affected and invites others, especially those in positions of power, to listen far more than they speak. Storytelling is not simply about history; it’s about how we intentionally listen and act when moved by these stories.
This brings me to theme three: the vast and enduring devastation caused by nuclear testing, and the fact that the terrible toll has been intentionally overlooked. The fallout from nuclear explosions is not confined to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From Washington state to the Pacific Islands, legacies of radioactive contamination, displacement, and irradiation run deep. I was brought to tears when Trina Sherwood from Yakama Nation described the dispossession of their homeland – a dispossession perpetrated by the US government that has prohibited them from engaging in their cultural practices and their overall pursuit of happiness.
What we have witnessed in the Marshall Islands is also sobering. Multiple nuclear tests conducted by the US government devastated the local ecology and interfered with cultural transmission. The trauma did not cease with the tests. It stretches through intergenerational health issues and forced migration the Marshallese people have experienced. Nuclear weapons reinforce a much longer arc of history intrinsically linked to colonialism, environmental racism, and genocide. The nuclear age is not a new era or a new chapter, but the continuation of modes of domination — this time endowed with the power of planetary annihilation. To seriously confront the danger of nuclear weapons, we have to stop regarding them as mere geopolitical abstractions and comprehend them as the instruments of structural violence they are.
The symposium concluded not with clear answers but with a challenge: to reframe nuclear disarmament not as a technical issue but as a cultural and ethical project. To survive we will have to radically invert the basis of politics from domination to interconnectedness. The struggle against nuclear weapons is fundamentally a struggle for humanity and a future premised on peace.