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For most people, looking up in the context of the research field I work in (space science) means turning our gaze towards the stars at night. We鈥檒l often see advice that keeping an eye out for clear skies and finding somewhere with as little light pollution as possible will deepen the experience. Perhaps, use a deck chair and lie back as your eyes become dark adjusted, so that the Milky Way and a multitude of stars emerge before you. And this is good advice.
We often associate looking at space with the act of looking up 鈥� going outside on a cold night and searching for stars, planets and galaxies. We鈥檝e been finding meaning in the sky around us for thousands of years, with cultures around the world telling stories about the skies above us. We still try to find meaning today; modern astronomy developed out of astrological attempts to understand how reading the stars could help us here on earth, and early space scientists around the US, Europe and Russia were influenced by the writings of Russian philosophers.
In the discussion we had at the start of this month, which christened our centre, we heard from a group of artists, writers and scientists whose work involved thinking through or a globe. More precisely, they discussed how we might attain new and different perspectives on our planetary home, which can help us to reconsider our relationship with it, and our taken-for-granted assumptions about our place in the cosmos.
I鈥檓 writing this on 26 September, on the train from Arbroath, leaving Hospitalfield House, where I鈥檝e just completed a two-week cross-disciplinary residency, which began on 16 March鈥�. Cut short by lockdown, suspended for 6 months while the House was closed. The replanting of the garden allowed a trial reopening, and the last (lost) group were invited back.
At its core, my academic work concerns the relationships people have to territory. I am interested in how people conceive of their relation to land in terms of how their sense of self, their identity, is tied to land, how they think through ownership, kin, belonging and politics. 鈥榃here are you from?鈥� is one of the most common questions one can be asked, how you answer this question expresses more than a geographic local but also how you think through your relationship to others, your sense of belonging and your sense of rights to place.
The Centre for Outer Space Studies was founded in 2019 to promote research and teaching related to the social study of space and our relationship to the cosmos and the planet. The Centre aims to act as a catalyst for serious debate, via talks, exhibitions, film screenings and other events that help us explore the wider socio-political impact of space science and the wider human relationship to outer space.
