About the Book
The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space offers state-of-the-art overview of contemporary social and cultural research on outer space. International in scope, the thirty-eight contributions by over fifty leading researchers and artists across a variety of disciplines and fields of knowledge, present a range of debates and pose key questions about the crafting of futures in relation to outer space. The Handbook is a call to attend more carefully to engagements with outer space, empirically, affectively, and theoretically, while characterizing current research practices and outlining future research agendas. This recalibration opens profound questions of intersectional politics, race, equity, and environmental justice around the contested topics of space exploration and life off-Earth. Among the many themes included in the volume are the various infrastructures, networks and systems that enable and sustain space exploration; space heritage; the ethics of outer space; social and environmental justice; fundamental debates about life in outer space as it pertains to both astrobiology and SETI; the study of scientific communities; the human body and consciousness; Indigenous astronomical systems of Knowledge; contemporary space art; and ongoing critical interventions to overcome the legacies of colonialism and dismantle hegemonic narratives of outer space.
Table of Contents:
1. Social Studies of Outer Space: Pluriversal Articulations Part 1: Fields 2. Trilogie Terrestre 3. Refielding in More-Than-Terran Spaces 4. Space and Time Through Material Culture: An Account of Space Archaeology 5. Anthropology and Contemporary Space Exploration, with a Note on Hopi Ladders 6. Planetary Ethnography in a "SpaceX Village": History, Borders, and the Work of "Beyond" 7. The Spaces of Outer Space 8. Sociological Approaches to Outer Space 9. Space Ethics 10. Other Worlds, Other Views: Contemporary Artists and Space Exploration Part 2: Intersections and Interventions 11. As Above, So Below: Space and Race in the Space Race 12. A Chronopolitics of Outer Space: A Poetics of Tomorrowing 13. Feminist Approaches to Outer Space: Engagements with Technology, Labour, and Environment 14. The Iconography of the Astronaut as a Critical Enquiry of Space Law 15. Diversity in Space 16. Mare Incognito: Live Performance Art Linking Sleep with the Cosmos through Radio Waves Part 3: Colonial Histories and Decolonial Futures 17. Celestial Relations with and as Milŋiyawuy, the Milky Way, the River of Stars 18. Coloniality and the Cosmos 19. Safeguarding Indigenous Sky Rights from Colonial Exploitation 20. Anishinaabeg in Space 21. Earthless Astronomy, Landless Datasets, and the Mining of the Future 22. Reconstellating Astroenvironmentalism: Borders, Parks, and Other Cosmic Imaginaries 23. Divergent Extraterrestrial Worlds: Navigating Cosmo-practices on Two Mountaintops in Thailand Part 4: Objects, Infrastructures, Networks, and Systems 24. Glitch in Space 25. Preparing for the "Internet Apocalypse": Data Centres and the Space Weather Threat 26. Space Infrastructures and Networks of Control and Care 27. Mexico Dreams of Satellites 28. Space Codes: The Astronaut and the Architect Part 5: Cultures in Orbit/Life in Space 29. Cosmic Waters 30. Unearthing Biosphere 2, Biosphere 2 as Un·Earthing 31. Living and Working in "The Great Outdoors": Astronautics as Everyday Work in NASA’s Skylab Programme 32. Adapting to Space: The International Space Station Archaeological Project 33. An Ethnography of an Extra-terrestrial Society: The International Space Station 34. Plant Biologists and the International Space Station: Institutionalising a Scientific Community 35. Whiteboards, Dancing, Origami, Debate: The Importance of Practical Wisdom for Astrophysicists and Instrument Scientists 36. Understanding the Question of Whether to Message Extraterrestrial Intelligence 37. Astrobiology and the Immanence of Life amidst Uncertainty 38. A Post-Geocentric Gravitography of Human Culture
About the Author :
Juan Francisco Salazar is an interdisciplinary researcher and documentary filmmaker. He is a Professor of Communications, Media, and Environment at Western Sydney University, Australia.
Alice Gorman is an archaeologist and heritage consultant. She is an Associate Professor at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.
Review :
"It’s rare that one sees a handbook about humanity’s relationship with, and activities in outer space, that goes beyond a few widely discussed themes focussed on science, technology, economics, law or geopolitics. Yet, as this unique collection of different perspectives clearly shows, space is so multi-faceted and touches every person on the planet. To see in one book the many other diverse ‘voices’ on space – from indigenous, to anthropological, to spiritual, to archaeological, to aesthetic, just to name a few – allows us to begin to comprehend the true ‘wonder’ of space and recalibrate our thinking about our responsibilities to respect and protect space for the future generations. A wonderful book co-edited by two amazing thought leaders about the future of humanity and its place in the galaxy around us."
Emeritus Professor Steven Freeland, Western Sydney University & Bond University, Vice-Chair of UNCOPUOS Working Group on Legal Aspects of Space Resource Activities
"This volume captures the capacious work and thinking that comes under the title "social studies of outer space." It excels at orienting the reader to the field’s formations and setting an ambitious and welcome vision for future work that embraces the multivocality of the cosmos. The contributing authors creatively and insightfully draw from numerous ontologies and epistemologies to animate what space is and can be. This generates an exciting collection that will no doubt inspire many new avenues of research."
Lisa Messeri, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Yale University, Author of Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds
"This ambitious and timely book brings outer space studies into the 21st century, bringing together cutting-edge critical theory with insights from voices marginalized by traditional space studies - voices that speak to the most pressing issues of today and open up genuine alternatives for future relations with earth and other planets. Weaving together issues of power, violence, social and ecological justice and (inter-)planetary crises, it offers newcomers to the field a nuanced understanding of the complexities of engaging with outer space in theory and practice, while experts will benefit from the richness of disciplines, knowledge systems, perspectives and innovative research found throughout its chapters. This book will make a lasting and critical impact on the field for years to come."
Audra Mitchell, Professor, Canada Research Chair in Global Political Ecology, Wilfrid Laurier University
"Outer space is not outside. It is inside. Inside the slipstreams of colonialism, capitalism, and the Cold War. But look to this extraordinary book to find countercurrents of the decolonial, antiracist, and communitarian — zones not of a universal universe, but of possible pluriverses, outside the orbits of cosmography as usual."
Stefan Helmreich, Elting E. Morison Professor of Anthropology, MIT
"Urgent, provocative, inspiring, troubling, and sure to be of enduring significance. With rich discussions of theories, methods, questions and interventions coming from across the social sciences and humanities,this mind-expanding compendium surveys some of the growing terrain of social studies of outer space and offers a robust welcome to newcomers to this vibrant and growing field."
Julie Klinger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, University of Delaware
"Alice Gorman and Juan Francisco Salazar are two of the most interesting and innovative writers and thinkers about outer space. They are legends in this field, both in Australia and internationally, and have inspired so many others to follow their lead in exploring this rich and endlessly fascinating topic. In this Handbook, they have brought together such an extraordinary range of diverse voices and perspectives on space. The publication of this Handbook is a watershed moment for all of us interested in using the social sciences and humanities to craft new approaches to human imaginings and futures in space."
Ceridwen Dovey
"This is a welcome contribution to the growing library of the social sciences, arts, and humanities on outer space that provides challenging socio-political perspectives in a field often dominated by narrow technical and bureaucratic histories."
Bleddyn Bowen, University of Leicester
"This meticulously curated collection offers critical and creative techniques to think-with space, to learn from earth’s predicaments, and to invent unforeseen modes of planetary habitation. In examining how space is bounded to Earth in the practices of everyday life, the rich and pluriversal space-making interventions presented here act as catalysts for remembering the past and for reinventing our social, cultural, political, and environmental relations."
Marie-Pier Boucher, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology, University of Toronto
