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Dear all, (with apologies for cross-posting!)

this is a reminder for the cfp for our panel =E2=80=9CDecolonizing Outer = Space Ethnography=E2=80=9D at the World Anthropological Union (WAU) = Congress. The conference will take place in Johannesburg and online from = 11th to 15th November this year. We will invite short pre-circulated = essays and we plan to submit the collection of papers to a major = journal. We are particularly happy to have Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre = Smiles as our discussant. Please find the panel description in the link = and below. https://waucongress.org/panel/pn44/ =

To submit an abstract, please click here: = https://waucongress.org/call-for-papers/ =

The deadline is May 13, 2024.=20 =20 All the best,=20 Hanna Nieber, Alana Osbourne, Anton Nikolotov and Anna Lisa Ramella =20 Decolonizing Outer Space Ethnography Discussant: Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, University of Victoria =20 How do material conditions of cosmic objects, environments, low-gravity = settings and experiences question established ethnographic categories of = analysis, ethics and normative practices? In this panel, we query how = physically inaccessible spaces and alien agencies may challenge colonial = legacies of ethnographic methods or reintroduce them in new guises. = Recent anthropological interest in outer space has cast established = methodological questions in a new light. Scholars have asked how to do = ethnography remotely, or how to relate ethnographically to extreme = scales and contingencies, or more-than-terrestrial places one has never = bodily experienced (Olson 2018; Szolucha et al. 2023). Advances in the = Social Studies of Outer Space draw on and extend works in archaeology = and media studies (Gorman and Walsch 2020), digital anthropology (Horst = and Miller 2012), and STS (Beaulieu 2010) that problematize ethnographic = practices in physically inaccessible locations. As an alternative to = co-location, "co-presence,=E2=80=9D or the establishment of synchronous = interactions with interlocutors (Buchli 2020), has been proposed as a = productive way of thinking and doing space ethnography. Arguably, this = also reintroduces the return of the pre-Malinowski mode of colonial = =E2=80=9Carm-chair anthropology=E2=80=9D (ibid.), while constructing = =E2=80=9Ccoevalness=E2=80=9D between the anthropologists and the = interlocutor (Fabian 1983). However, if it is the case that the vast = cosmic scales unsettle the habitual terrestrial regimes of simultaneity, = as Valentine (forthcoming) suggests, then what are the multiple ethical = ways of relating to and inhabiting the cosmic non-coevalness today or in = the future? With this panel, we aim to join the conversation with other = scholars interrogating colonial legacies in space exploration and = technoscience (Smiles 2020; Shorter and TallBear 2021; Young 1987). We = propose to extend this analysis to the challenges of doing ethnographic = research of extra-/terrestrial environments, objects, phenomena and = relations. What do co-present or dis-simultaneous methods entail and who = or what can be co-present? We invite papers, work-in-progress proposals, = and ethnographically informed artistic interventions to reflect on the = current state of the art. We ask how engagement with outer space might = bring new insights to questions of the coloniality of research (Smith = 2016), advance the reformatting of ethnography as para-site (Marcus and = Holmes 2013) or collaborative curation (Sansi-Roca 2019), or disassemble = ethnography in favor of anthropology (Ingold 2017). Finally, we are = interested in research strategies that can help think with Mbembe=E2=80=99= s (2021) concept of =E2=80=9Cplanetarity entanglements=E2=80=9D beyond = Earth and engage with the current context of the neocolonial space race, = the displacement of communities by space infrastructures and emerging = space capitalism.

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Prof. Dr. Anna Lisa Ramella = =20

Juniorprofessorin f=C3=BCr Kulturwissenschaftliche Methoden=20 Leuphana Universit=C3=A4t L=C3=BCneburg

Methodenzentrum Universit=C3=A4tsallee 1 | C40.528 21335 L=C3=BCneburg

Tel. 04131-6774015