Chakad Ojani: "Grounding Space/Un-Earthing Ground: The Possibilities and Limitations of Extraterrestrial Anthropology”

ABSTRACT:

Sweden is currently transforming its sounding rocket range, Esrange, into an orbital launch site for small satellites. This development responds to broader shifts in the global space sector—often described as the “new space economy”—characterized by satellite miniaturization and a diversification of space actors.

Drawing on ethnographic research in Kiruna and other Swedish cities, this seminar examines how the development of orbital launch capability is mediated by infrastructures of resource extraction and their associated forms of marginalization. I describe this analytical focus as emphasizing space’s “groundedness,” highlighting how sociopolitical dynamics on Earth remain inseparable from human activity in space.

At the same time, by discussing contemporary concerns such as space weather and orbital debris, I argue that emergent extraplanetary relations also require attention to influence running in the opposite direction: from space to Earth. This perspective situates space within terrestrial processes but is primarily concerned with how these processes are being “un-Earthed.” Against this backdrop, I suggest that intensifying infrastructural engagements with space call for a reconsideration of geocentric perspectives on environmental relations and the social study of outer space.