Resonant worlds: Cultivating proximal encounters in planetary science

Abstract

Planetary scientists are adept at producing knowledge about objects that are far removed from their lived experience of place and time. Sometimes, they overcome this distance by positioning Earth as a planet that can stand for other worlds. Encountering Earth becomes an encounter with another planet. When scientists experience the Earthly as otherworldly, they sometimes feel an excitement here described as “resonance.” Fully felt resonance is rare, but scientists devote much time and effort to preparing for it so as not to miss its fleeting instances. Just as resonance affords scientists the possibility of experiencing the distant, it also describes moments when the anthropologist is in harmony with what had previously been strange. Thus, resonance is a mode of cognitive and affective reasoning that collapses distance and transforms the similar into the same.

Time and Relational Possibility: Cultural Anthropology in 2017

“…How we theorize from place, and what that means for how we conceptualize the human, takes on different valences when the relations we seek to understand depart from the kinds of physical places discussed above to consider views from other planets, as theorized by David Valentine () and Lisa Messeri (), and relations with animals, plants, and chemicals, as emphasized by a growing number of anthropologists. For example, in a Cultural Anthropology Openings and Retrospectives section on “Chemo‐Ethnography,” Nicholas Shapiro and Eben Kirksey (), Michelle Murphy (), and Elizabeth Povinelli () urge us to think with the forms of sociality and care that emerge out of chemical exposures; in the same issue, Elizabeth Roberts's () essay, discussed above, engages similar questions and concerns.…”

Wor(l)d‐Building: Simulation and Metaphor at the Mars Desert Research Station

“…Communications from the MDRS demonstrate that language is key to the development of imaginative frames as well as adaptation to the novel environment and experiences of the SIM. In her recent book, Messeri (2016) discusses her experience conducting fieldwork at MDRS and attests that she found herself "playing Mars" by creating a narrative. She argues that narratives "allow actors to stabilize the messiness and multiplicity of space" (2016:201).…”

“…The integrity of the simulation at MDRS is secondary only to the physical safety of crew members. Basic safety concerns, as well as the physical limitations of the MDRS create parameters for the SIM, however the "world" that crews create (Messeri 2016) is an imagined one. In crew discourse, this imaginary world is perceived as not being solely dependent, or satisfied by objective physical parameters.…”

“…Crews are dedicated to their seriousness and the "reality" of their "missions," but these missions do not provide an experience of informal play, nor of being in a formal laboratory. The SIM is a hybrid of "real" experience and projected and "imagined" experience of Mars which are informed as much by "hard" science as by science fiction narratives (Messeri 2016).…”

Conceptualizing Difference in SETI: Xenoanthropological Theory and Methods

“…Insights from environmental space anthropology suggest we consider coevolution beyond the planetary scale, to include solar systems, and interstellar space, as we search for ETI who may be living outside the restrictions of a single planetary influence. An emerging "space-inclusive anthropology" [2] can examine both human and non-human engagements with space, studying how scientists produce knowledge at a distance [27], how humans and non-humans develop social relationships as we move into space [30], and how ETI might interpret messaging objects like the Voyager record [18]. Space was once considered outside the scope of anthropology, however new subfields dedicated to space, and recent attention to science studies, provide opportunities for collaboration with anthropologists as advisors, partners, and co-authors [e.g.…”