ABSTRACT
Focusing on the world tour of two mobile laboratories used for on-site training in radioisotope handling, this chapter examines the entanglement between expert training, knowledge circulation, and geostrategies during the Cold War. The two laboratories were gifted by the US government to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1958, especially to support and stimulate nuclear research in the non-aligned and decolonizing countries of the “Third World”, at a time when radioisotopes were considered vital for increasing agricultural and scientific productivity. However, by giving these young nations a sense of partnership with the West, the educational program also served to counter communist influences abroad. Drawing on multi-archival research, this chapter argues that the mobile laboratories bore symbolic power because they simultaneously embodied the geopolitical visions of the US government and enacted a developmentalist imaginary.
