Abstract

This description of how a uranium mine in western France was managed once it had been shut down draws attention to what was “left behind”. It emphasizes how the mine became something common, ordinary, since the work conducted there during the 1990s gradually erased evidence of the mining of uranium in France; and then it has become an uncommon form of memory owing to the emergence of traces of mining activities. This example provides a framework for broader questions about the effect of what is left behind in articulating past and present, and in the public construction of what is “memorable” in environmental management.