Space Feminisms: People, Planets, Power

(Paperback)

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Employing a global approach to feminist theory, this book examines how scientific, popular, scholarly, and artistic imaginations of space have, since the 1950s, reflected and embedded Earthly hopes, anxieties, and futures.

Rather than simply a platform for imagining the future, it cultivates radical and alternative modes of inquiry around space through seeing space as a material reality that reflexively encodes humans self-perceptions of their planet and beyond. Bringing together essayistic reflections, artworks, and interviews with space scientists, engineers, and astronauts past and present in one volume, Space Feminisms inspects the transformation of terrestrially held notions of gender, race, class, and ableism as they migrate to the extraterrestrial, whilst drawing new connections between feminist thought and extraterrestrial power structures.

Space Feminisms makes a radical enquiry into how earthly power structures are already expanding into our skies, facilitating a collaborative and interdisciplinary platform for scholars, artists, and designers to imagine radical constructions of human futures beyond Earth. At the intersection of scientific, cultural, social, and artistic speculations, the book gathers leading scholars, scientists, artists, and designers to develop innovative tactics and disruptive participations to create generative, alternative, and radical futures of and in space.

Reviews

In a world where the exploration of outer space is becoming an increasingly prominent part of our collective future, Space Feminisms offers a timely and indispensable lens through which we can rethink our place in the cosmos.
Thought-provoking and transformative, it will undoubtedly be celebrated as a cornerstone in the ongoing discourse surrounding space, feminism, and the limitless possibilities that lie ahead. It is a must-read for anyone interested in reshaping our cosmic futures and its speculative and material forms.

* Mnica Bello, Head of Arts at CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, Switzerland *
Space Feminisms delves into the complexities of our relationship with space and addresses our future with a pluralistic, generous, inquisitive approach that allows us to envision new possibilities for existence and coexistence. * Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Architecture & Design, The Museum of Modern Art, USA *
This excellent book recontextualizes the future of space exploration and makes a radical enquiry into how earthly power structures are already expanding into our skies. * Roger Malina, Professor of Physics and Endowed Chair of Arts and Technology, UT Dallas, USA *

Author Bio

Marie-Pier Boucher is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, University of Toronto, Canada. She is co-editor of Being Material (2019), Heteropolis (2013), and Adaptive Actions Madrid (2010).

Claire Webb is a Fellow at the Berggruen Institute and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Annick Bureaud is an art critic, curator and Director of Leonardo/Olats, Paris, France.

Nahum Romero is the founder of the Berlin-based KOSMICA Institute, and a Faculty member at the International Space University in France and at the transnational University of the Underground.