«Which science, for who?» : Gloria Campos Venuti and the nuclear risk (1977-87)

Abstract

The article outlines the profile of Gloria Campos Venuti, physicist at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and Communist Party member, within the framework of the nuclear controversy in Italy, from the mid‑nineteen‑seventies to the Chernobyl disaster. Through her trajectory, which intertwines environmental activism and feminist reflection, the study places at the centre of the anti-nuclear debate the critique of the expert’s neutral and detached role, questioning interpretations focused on environmental and health risks. That risk, in fact, exposed the traditional model of relations between science and society, as the presumed neutrality of the former legitimised univocal responses to economic and social issues. In the aftermath of Chernobyl, against both the scientist’s public role as a “disseminator” of prescriptive truths and the growing mistrust of science reduced to mere opinion, Campos Venuti reaffirmed the need to promote a critical understanding of the processes of knowledge production as the only way to address the new democratic questions raised by techno-scientific development.