45. Expanding the Cosmos: Relations with, Recoverings of, and Resistances to Space Sciences and Outer Space
Eleanor Armstrong, University of Delaware; Reka Gal, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês, Spanish/Español/Espanhol, Portuguese/Portugués
Continuing the conversations emerging during the ‘Rethinking Outer Space and Science’ panel at 4S 2021, and in Uahikea Maile’s Plenary ‘On Anti-Colonialism in Space’, this panel encourages critical engagements with outer space across a range of methods, practices, and praxes that unsettle and resist the hegemonic narratives and imaginaries of space, and (re)create space sciences otherwise. We use the term “space sciences” expansively to refer to: the practices of science, engineering, and medicine related to outer space; the locations where this research takes place; the communication of such technosciences; direct and indirect institutional and organisational labour practices supporting it; and the materials of production, use, and waste associated with the field. We especially encourage contributions that take anti-colonial, anti-racist, crip, feminist, Indigenous, and/or queer approaches to this topic.
We situate this panel within the 2022 theme by drawing attention to a key dimension of the conference: what relations have been broken or continued to be damaged by space sciences, and how can they be (re)built in a way that fosters good relations and coming together in difference? How do space sciences reinforce and recreate existing oppressions? How can we understand labour, caregiving, maintenance, and repair within space sciences? How can we recover what is valuable within space science to reconfigure the field beyond existing oppressions? How do we create relations of mutual responsibility between all permutations of the relations between humans and other-than-humans in space sciences. How can we reconfigure epistemologies relating to space?
