Pre-enacting the next war: the visual culture of Danish civil defence in the early nuclear age

‘The World is Her Home’: The Role of Women Volunteers in Dutch Civil Defence in the 1950s and 1960s

10.1007/978-3-030-84281-9_6 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 129-156

Author(s):

Dick van Lente

Keyword(s):

Gender Stereotypes ◽

Nuclear War ◽

Nuclear Age ◽

The World ◽

Women Volunteers ◽

The Government ◽

And Gender ◽

Civil Defence

AbstractThis chapter describes, and attempts to explain, the contrast between a successful campaign by women volunteers to prepare women for protecting their families in the event of nuclear war and the stumbling efforts of the official Dutch civil defence organisation. The explanation is sought in the perception (or sociotechnical imaginary) of these women of their role in the nuclear age, and the grassroots quality of their work, as opposed to the top-down views and practices of the civil defence organisation, in a society which had a low opinion of the government’s efficacy in the extreme emergency of a nuclear war. The chapter illustrates the influence of widespread and deeply engrained perceptions, such as trust in the government and gender stereotypes, on attitudes towards a new threat.

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Prepare or resist?: Cold War Civil Defence and Imaginaries of Nuclear War in Britain and Denmark in the 1980s

Journal of Contemporary History ◽

10.1177/00220094211031996 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002200942110319

Author(s):

Rosanna Farbøl

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

The Other ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Nuclear Space ◽

Nuclear War ◽

Nuclear Age ◽

Local Actors ◽

Civil Defence ◽

Shared Understandings ◽

Global Cold War

The article explores how the global Cold War conflict was made sense of and situated in local political, cultural and physical landscapes and communities during the 1980s in Britain and Denmark. Using civil defence as a prism, the article employs a comparative approach to explore variations within and between countries of how local authorities prepared or resisted the prospect of nuclear war. The article finds that two main imaginaries emerged that shaped shared understandings of society before, during and after the imagined future war: one emphasized the possibility of nuclear survival and even welfare, the other urged resistance and renounced the futility of civil defence preparations. The article argues that local actors used these imaginaries to empower themselves, to define how nuclear space was imagined and lived and to construct desirable (and undesirable) visions of the future. The imaginaries were multiscalar and interacted with developments at global and national levels, and the article sheds light on this three-way dynamic of understanding and articulating the nuclear age.

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Embedding Preparedness, Assigning Responsibility: The Role of Film in Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Civil Defence

10.1007/978-3-030-84281-9_5 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 103-128

Author(s):

Peter Bennesved ◽

Casper Sylvest

Keyword(s):

Social Norms ◽

Theoretical Discussion ◽

Psychosocial Effects ◽

Film And Television ◽

Political Position ◽

Nuclear Age ◽

Sociotechnical Imaginaries ◽

Civil Defence ◽

The Cold War

AbstractThis chapter examines the role of film and television in embedding sociotechnical imaginaries of civil defence during the early nuclear age (c. 1949–1965) by zooming in on Sweden and Denmark, two neighbouring countries that differed both in terms of their political position in the Cold War and in the scale of their civil defence efforts. Following a theoretical discussion of the psychosocial effects of films and their manner of circulation, we analyse Swedish and Danish films in two periods demarcated by the thermonuclear disruption of civil defence during the mid-1950s. The analysis highlights how films were used to frame technologies and script and perform social norms. We argue that films constitute an important source for understanding the difficulties of embedding sociotechnical imaginaries of civil defence.

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