Nuclear Power, Modernization Discourse, And The Learning of Socio-Material Networks : A qualitative study of industrialization generation nuclear supporters’ perceptions of nuclear power

This study examines the persistence and intensification of dependence on nuclear power in Korean society despite the risks of nuclear power plant as a social and collective learning process in new materialist perspective. In this perspective, nuclear power plant is deeply embedded in the sociomaterial connections of Korean modern society and is constantly reconnected and regenerated. The sociomaterial system that includes objects, institutions, ideas, symbols, and minds connected around nuclear power plants is called the nuclear power plant assemblage, and the process by which this assemblage is formed in the discourse and practice of modernization in Korea and is constantly regenerated and circulated is a process of learning. This study analyzes and interprets thematic life history interviews with four participants, who is old and conservative, classified as industrialization generation, and who strongly opposed nuclear phase-out policy, and shows that for them, nuclear power plants were more than just a tool for generating electricity, but had a materialized agency that led to Korea's high growth and modernization. Through an analysis of participants' lived experiences, this study investigates the interplay between the nuclear power system and the discourses and practices of modernization. It explores how the system has been historically shaped, continuously reconstructed, and evolved—conceptualized as a process of learning—to understand the personal, social, and material transformations associated with nuclear power.