Apparatuses of observation and occupation: Settler colonialism and space science in Hawai'i

Abstract

This paper examines two space science infrastructures in Hawai'i, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and the Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS). It considers how scientific observation and colonial occupation are co-constituted through the production of apparatuses – extensive material practices and arrangements that iteratively produce subject–object relations. By analyzing TMT and HI-SEAS as apparatuses, we show how both involve the active ordering of space, time, and matter in ways that are dependent upon existing settler colonial relations while enacting specific subject positions key to the projection of settler colonialism across space and time. TMT materializes the Archimedean point, or view-from-nowhere, on which Western scientific “objectivity” depends, while HI-SEAS works to produce ideal colonizer-subjectivities and orient their bodies to the spatialities of the colony. Engaging Native Hawai’ian, Indigenous, and allied anti-colonial critiques, we argue that social science of outer space research must critically address the colony, as its basic logics are foundational to the practices of contemporary space science and imaginaries of space exploration.

National aeronautics and space administration on IGTV: Multimodal discourses of space

“…Nevertheless, newly highlighted privatization and commercialization of space endeavors implicitly rely on colonial claims on outer space, as well as heterosexual masculinity (Griffin, 2009). Colonial interests are discursively equated with and justified as economic interests and technological advancement in exploring the New Frontier, whether through narratives of robotic rover missions on Mars in which NASA and the media employ mapping, naming, and Earth analogies to Mars (Dittmer, 2007) or through white supremacist colonial practices of scientific observation and telescopic surveillance that, thus, objectify celestial and non-stellar objects (Messeri, 2016; Sammler and Lynch, 2021).…”

“…The newly constructed Capitalist Frontier narrative strengthens colonial logics and deepens existing economic inequalities (Prescod-Weinstein, 2022). Frontier exploration, competition, and technological advancement are further embodied in gendered labor division associated with hegemonic masculinity (Griffin, 2009; Sage, 2016) and whiteness (Hersch, 2012; Sammler and Lynch, 2021). Even though NASA has been employing women since its foundation, gendered labor is grounded in the expert bodies of astronauts who are risk-takers, competitive, agile, and controlling—all qualities ascribed to male bodies (Sage, 2016).…”

“…The aim of this study is to locate and unpack the symbolic construction of space in NASA IGTV videos and the usage of multiple semiotic resources in those videos to further understand the roles of material, social, and cultural resources in multimodal interaction and communication in this particular context. This study is grounded in the interconnection of the concepts of U.S. progress, efficiency, and exceptionalism (Sage, 2016); space colonialism (Dittmer, 2007; Sammler and Lynch, 2021); racial and gendered labor (Griffin, 2009); and territorialization and capitalist appropriation of space (Harvey, 2005; Rasmussen and Lund, 2018).…”

“…An exemplar is the video “Science at 17,500 miles per hour” in which both men’s and women’s perceived roles are of scientists and astronauts but in which men outnumbered women by three to one. In this fashion, exceptionalism and expertise of technological and scientific knowledge is through visuals implicitly ascribed to male bodies, specifically to white, middle-aged men (Griffin, 2009; Hersch, 2012; Sage, 2016; Sammler and Lynch, 2021).…”

“…Territorialization of space has been a political project that has perpetuated capitalist models of space commercialization and appropriation through discourses of space tourism, implicit labor commodification, and the use of Instagram as a global tool to nurture elitist space exploration culture. Additionally, territorialization is accomplished through processes of space observation in which both outer space and celestial and non-celestial bodies are objectified (Sammler and Lynch, 2021). NASA extended the role of subjects who research, examine, and observe space from the experts to the general public.…”