Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History

The nuclear history of the American Southwest is often told and remembered as a patriotic pioneer story: the Manhattan Project scientists and military men who built the first nuclear weapons on desertland in an effort to end World War II. Or eager prospectors and mining companies that descended on this expansive terrain with geiger counters in hand to find uranium ore for a promising new nuclear industry. In these narratives, the land is a military and industrial commodity – inevitably becoming toxic and irradiated sites – while the Indigenous communities who live in the land fade into the backdrop.

What if we told the story differently?

Ways of Knowing is a project where Navajo traditional culture and ecological knowledge reclaim and retell the nuclear legacy of the Southwest. It is an invitation to experience and learn the land — to unsee state borders, land claims, and uranium mines, and instead acknowledge the sacredness of the landscape and its capacity to heal under the loving stewardship of Indigenous elders, scholars and activists. This land – Diné Bikéyah – holds a history much deeper than the atom bomb, and has a future that transcends resource extraction and war.

THE VIOLENT HISTORY OF URANIUM MINING

An estimated 30 million tons of uranium ore were mined from Navajoland between 1942 and 1985. The uranium was initially used for defense-related work (nuclear weapons research and production), but eventually shifted to exclusively serve industrial applications, mainly for nuclear energy production.

Extracting this mineral from the ground profoundly changed people’s relationship with the land: Uranium became a critical economic asset, driving a boom-and-bust cycle in rural communities and tribal lands. According to available records, there were as many as 3,000 Navajo uranium mining workers tasked with low-wage, dangerous work despite the known health risks. Uranium mining and other activities related to the nuclear fuel cycle led to environmental contamination across Navajo and other Indigenous lands, including the Churchrock spill—the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history—which led to 94 million gallons of radioactive waste spilling into the Puerco River, a vital waterway used for water and livestock grazing. When uranium became less profitable in the 1980s, many mining companies closed and abandoned their uranium mines.

Today, there are still over 500 abandoned uranium mines awaiting clean-up (about 360 mines are categorized as defense-related.) The progress of this work remains uncertain due to current U.S. government funding cuts within governmental entities responsible for clean-up, and a general policy shift away from environmental stewardship.

Through VR filmmaking, on-the-ground research, and knowledge exchange between nuclear policy and Indigenous scientists and scholars, Ways of Knowing wrestles with the complicated threads that connect nuclear weapons, resource extraction, environmental contamination, and Indigenous erasure. But this difficult work presents an opening for kinship – spending time with the land; forging friendships; supporting local activism and scholarship; and learning forgotten histories and ways of knowing – that become seeds of resistance and healing.