Beyond the Anthropocene: Un-Earthing an Epoch

Olson, Valérie A.; Messeri, Lisa

doi:10.3167/ares.2015.060103

Cited by 53 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…To raise awareness of space debris as a concern, they saw no alternative to constantly visualizing it as an inherently multisited "disturbance." As a boundary infrastructure, space debris thus appears to enable what Olson and Messeri (2015) have called "scalar politics of cosmologies" (p. 31). As it requires speaking of orbital-planetary environments by always referring to a multitude of scales, it also mirrors what Gärdebo, Marzecova, and Knowles (2017) define as an interscalar vehicle: An "empirical object [ .…”

Section: Scaling Visualizations: Space Debris As a Boundary Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

Troubled Orbits and Earthly Concerns: Space Debris as a Boundary Infrastructure

Clormann

Klimburg-Witjes

2021

Science, Technology, & Human Values

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Like other forms of debris in terrestrial and marine environments, space debris prompts questions about how we can live with the material remains of technological endeavors past and yet to come. Although techno-societies fundamentally rely on space infrastructures, they so far have failed to address the infrastructural challenge of debris. Only very recently has the awareness of space debris as a severe risk to both space and Earth infrastructures increased within the space community. One reason for this is the renewed momentum of interplanetary space exploration, including the colonization of the Moon and Mars, which is part of transhumanist and commercially driven dreams of the so-called New Space age. Understanding space infrastructures as inherently linked to earthly infrastructure, we attend to the ways in which space debris, a once accepted by-product of scientific-technological progress, economic interests, and geopolitics, increasingly becomes a matter of concern. Drawing on qualitative interviews with European space sector representatives and work in Science and Technology Studies on infrastructures, we argue that their discursive efforts and visual representation strategies coproduce space debris as a boundary infrastructure. We suggest considering this boundary infrastructure as relating orbital environments and the planet through enacting sustainability and responsibility for beyond-planetary environments.

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Section: Scaling Visualizations: Space Debris As a Boundary Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

Troubled Orbits and Earthly Concerns: Space Debris as a Boundary Infrastructure

Clormann

Klimburg-Witjes

2021

Science, Technology, & Human Values

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“…A growing body of critical work considers geographies of outer space (e.g., Cosgrove 1994;Dunnett et al 2019;MacDonald 2007;Messeri 2016;Olson and Messeri 2015). Th is includes infl uential work considering near-Earth space as a place of geopolitics, capitalist endeavor, environment, and culture Parks 2005Parks , 2012Rand 2016).…”

Section: Exploring Orbital Debris Through Geographical Imaginationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of Place in Outer Space?

Hunter

Nelson

2021

Environment and Society

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Increasing human activity in orbital space has resulted in copious material externalities known as “orbital debris.” These objects threaten the orbital operations of hegemonic stakeholders including states, corporations, and scientists, for whom debris present a significant problem. We argue that the geographical imaginations of powerful stakeholders shape conceptions of orbital debris and limit engagement with these objects. By engaging with interdisciplinary literature that considers orbital debris and geographical imaginations of outer space, we encourage a more capacious approach to orbital debris that goes beyond hegemonic narratives focused on functionality. We explore the connections between debris and injustice, arguing that these objects must also be considered in relation to terrestrial power and ecology. We then contemplate the possibilities that counter-hegemonic framings present when considering speculative futures of orbital space. In these ways, we explore how and why debris are variously engaged with as pollutants, risks, opportunities, or otherwise.

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“…In the discussion on the Anthropocene, the agency of the species Homo sapiens (understood in a collective manner) 9 is evaluated not only on the geological timescale but also in a cosmic scope. 10 So rudimentary is the concept of agency that this feature of the debate on the Anthropocene attracts attention and encourages reflection (see Chakrabarty, 2018;Olson and Messeri, 2015). Through the emission of greenhouse gases, humans are responsible for changing the climate for at least the next 100,000 years.…”

Section: Third a Bold Reinterpretation Of The Basic Philosophical Comentioning

confidence: 99%

The most unique discussion of the 21st century? The debate on the Anthropocene pictured in seven points

Bińczyk

2019

The Anthropocene Review

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Nineteen years after Stoermer’s and Crutzen’s proposal, the article poses questions regarding the sources of the captivating uniqueness dwelling in the idea of the Anthropocene and in the debate surrounding it. The distinctiveness of the Anthropocene debate is elucidated in seven points. These points discuss: (1) a shocking confrontation of timeframes, (2) the drama surrounding the risk of losing the future, (3) a bold reinterpretation of the basic philosophical concepts, (4) the unification of different disciplines around a common research agenda, (5) the central problem of irreversibility, (6) the eschatological dimension of the debate, (7) the vision of the debate as a warning and a catalyst for political change.

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Beyond the Anthropocene: Un-Earthing an Epoch

Cited by 53 publications

References 0 publications

Troubled Orbits and Earthly Concerns: Space Debris as a Boundary Infrastructure

Troubled Orbits and Earthly Concerns: Space Debris as a Boundary Infrastructure

Out of Place in Outer Space?

The most unique discussion of the 21st century? The debate on the Anthropocene pictured in seven points

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