Port Hope is a small town in southeastern Ontario, which is often recognized as having a unique and eclectic local community identity. This project began as an attempt to describe dimensions of the community identity, and how that identity is informed by the occurrence of historic low-level radioactive waste contamination. To explore identity issues this project shows how people who live in Port Hope have personal ties to that place, and its history. Using the literature on the social nature of geographies, and comparisons of other contaminated environments, this thesis attempts to understand data acquired during summer fieldwork and library research. The fieldwork data is a compilation of interviews with diverse participants, who explain their understandings and feelings on contamination and clean up. By analyzing these understandings and feelings, and by looking at government responses and policies, plus comparative cases, this thesis attempts to provide a window into identity in the Port Hope community. More particularly, it attempts to consider the question of why people seem satisfied those years of exposure, and continued exposure, have not affected their health. It considers how clean up and scientific tools of exclusion have kept some people from asking questions, and prevented others from getting answers.
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