Conversation: On France, Niger, Uranium, and Nuclear Power

Mora-Kpai’s extraordinary “Arlit: Deuxième Paris,” described as a “a case study in environmental racism set in a uranium mining town in the Sahara Desert of Niger” will serve as springboard for a timely discussion on the history of France-Niger relations, nuclear power, and everyday life in the former French colony. The coup d’état of 2023 invites reflection on the imbrications of past in present, touching on policy, economy, environment, public health, and politics from the perspective of lived experience in the mining town.

Carina E. Ray, A.M. and H.P. Bentley Chair in African History and Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan. Author, Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana (Athens, OH, 2015); coeditor, Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan: A Critical Reader (Ithaca, 2019).

Idrissou Mora-Kpai, Guggenheim Fellow for Film & Video (2023), fellow at The Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE. Assistant Professor, Department of Media Arts, Sciences and Studies, Ithaca College. Recent works include “America Street” (2020) and “Indochina – Traces of a Mother” (2011). See, https://idrimora.com/.