The Sovereignty of Sovereignties: On the Satellitization of Planet Earth

Abstract

The essay explores the emergence of a new paradigm in biopolitical power which is proper to the Anthropocene. Characteristic of this new form of biopower is that it neither exercises direct control over life nor over territory, but rather derives power from knowledge relevant to sustaining the ‘life’ of satellites in abiotic extraterrestrial dominions. By tracking the historical process of satellitization, in other words, the different forms of dependency of terrestrial political power on satellites since Sputnik, this article shows that these lifeless orbiting machines are deeply entangled with how capital has formed our unsustainable lives on this planet. But it also shows that saving orbital space can contribute to saving life on earth, even if such salvation implies a degree of complicity with the existing order of power. The primary objective of the paper is to show that this amounts to a paradigm shift within the spatiality of biopolitical analysis, and a broadening of the horizons of ecocritical concern. What it means is that we can no longer think about environmental politics in global terms, nor think about the planet as merely the inverse of the globe. In the Anthropocene, planet is a planet in a space that is not void but politicized, increasingly animated with inanimate bodies nevertheless connected to our terrestrial lives. To attend to the contemporary struggle for sovereignty over this politicized space, to bring the struggle for the sovereignty of sovereignties into Anthropocene imaginary, this paper proposes a new figure for imagining the planet. Rather than the Blue Marble, or Das Große Gehege, it offers up the earth ringed round with commercial and military constellations and space junk. Not because that is beautiful, but rather because that is where we are.