Title Pending 18013

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.This commentary shares insights on the important role collaboration plays in supporting critical nuclear scholars and producing critical nuclear scholarship that can engage audiences within and beyond academia. These insights are drawn from our nearly two decades of combined experience as a settler feminist critical scholar (Author 1) and Métis-settler feminist critical scholar (Author 2) researching in the nuclear space, as well as how we came together to collaboratively design political tools (nuclear maps) and a virtual hub (Anon) to support people contending with nuclear contestations in their everyday lives and research. The commentary emphasizes the important role our research collaboration has played in supporting our critical nuclear scholarship in the face of nuclear paternalism: the experience of being treated as ignorant and in need of guidance after raising critical questions about nuclear issues. While nuclear paternalism may attempt to shut down critical nuclear inquiries, we reframe this pushback as a generative force that invites researchers to refine and reconceptualize our approaches to critical nuclear scholarship and collaborations. By collectively addressing nuclear paternalism and engaging in generative collaborative scholarship—e.g., through following Eve Tuck’s advice to view our collaboration as a “contingent collaboration”[1] and taking the time to articulate our shared theory of change[2]—we suggest scholars can create a foundation for refining theorizations of nuclear technologies and society and foster methodological and interdisciplinary strategies that better address the dispersed and networked nature of nuclear power. [1] Tuck et al., “Geotheorizing Black/Land: Contestations and Contingent Collaborations,” 53.[2] Tuck, “Re-Visioning Action”; Tuck, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.”