Anthropology Off Earth

ANTHROPOLOGY OFF EARTH

How Terrestrial Exploration and Scientific Imagination

Shape Our Relation to Outer Space and Extraterrestrial Life

4 June 2019
Collège de France
Salle 2
11, place Marcelin Berthelot
Paris 5e

5 June 2019
Observatoire de Paris
Salle du Conseil
77, Avenue Denfert-Rochereau
Paris 14e


Online registration required on: https://forms.gle/JchYSNiCUeDaPvty7


Organisers: Perig Pitrou (CNRS/Collège de France/Paris Sciences et Lettres University), Régis Ferrière (École Normale Supérieure/Paris Sciences et Lettres University & University of Arizona), Istvan Praet (University of Roehampton, London).

Organisers of the doctoral and post-doctoral session: Joffrey Becker (IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University), Elsa De Smet (IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University).

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CONFERENCE PROGRAM

4 June 2019
Collège de France
Salle 2

Morning Session

9:30
Welcome

10am
Perig PITROU
LAS – IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University
Anthropology of Life, On Earth & Off Earth

10:40
Denis SIVKOV
Institute for Social Sciences / RANEPA Moscow
Space Exploration at Home: Amateur Cosmonautics in Contemporary Russia

11:20
Break

11:40
Aaron PARKHURST, David JEEVENDRAMPILLAI
University College London, NTNU
Making a Martian Feel at Home: Finding Humans on Mars Through Utopian Architecture

12:20
Roundtable
Familiarizing the Extraterrestial / Making our Planet Alien
Discussion led by
Istvan PRAET
University of Roehampton

1pm
Lunch Break

Afternoon Session

2:30
Elie DURING
Paris Nanterre University
Zero-G as Expanded Gravitational Experience
Scientific Imagination in Orbital Perspective

3:10
Istvan PRAET
University of Roehampton
The Ancient Earth as an Alien Planet
Astrobiological Models and the Installation of Discontinuities

3:50
Break

4:20
Luis CAMPOS
University of New Mexico
Soviet Astrobotany: Early Experiments in Earthly Analogues for Martian Life

5pm
Roundtable
New Ecologies
Discussion led by
Régis FERRIÈRE
ENS – UMI Iglobes

6pm
Cocktail Reception
Lunch Seminar College de France

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5 June 2019
Observatoire de Paris
Salle du conseil

Keynote Session

9:30am
Welcome

9:45
Valerie OLSON
UC Irvine
Making Sense of Post-terrestrial Ecosystems

10:45
Break

11am
Lisa MESSERI
Yale University
Outer Space on Earth: Terrestrial Analogues for Imagining Other Worlds

12pm
General discussion
 Led by
Perig PITROU, Ludovic JULLIEN, Stéphane MAZEVET
LAS – IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University, SU – ENS/Paris Sciences et Lettres University, Observatoire de Paris/Paris Sciences et Lettres University

12:35
Lunch Break

Doctoral & Post Doctoral Session

2:15
Elsa DE SMET, Joffrey BECKER
IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University
Introduction

2:30
Tamara ALVAREZ
The New School for Social Research
The Moon as Nature

2:45
Benjamin POTHIER
Plymouth University / The Explorers Club
Astronauts On I.C.E: Lessons Learnt From Field Research During Analog Astronaut Trainings and Life Experiences in [I.C.E] Isolated, Confined and Extreme Environments

3pm
Gabriela RADULESCU
Humboldt University of Berlin / University of Iceland
The Outer Space Imaginary Shaped During the Cold War by the Soviet Project of Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI)

3:15
Julien WACQUEZ
EHESS Paris / CEFRES
How Does Science Fiction Literature Shape Scientific Imagination?

3:30
Break

3:45
Valentina MARCHESELLI
University of Milan, La Statale
Welcome to planet Mars: Analogy-making and space exploration

4pm
Meredith ROOT-BERNSTEIN
Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad, AgroParisTech, Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability, Santiago, Chile
Things That Are Not Alive, But That May Be Alive, in A Certain Way

4:15
Siri LAMOUREAUX, James MERRON
Max Planck Institute, University of Basel
Ghana’s Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Scientific Imagination

4:30
Alexander TAYLOR
University of Cambridge
Space Weather Security in the Data Centre Industry

4:45
General Discussion
Led by
Istvan PRAET, Régis FERRIÈRE, Elsa DE SMET, Joffrey BECKER
University of Roehampton, ENS-UMI Iglobes, IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University

Anthropology Off Earth - Call for papers

Anthropology Off Earth
How Terrestrial Exploration and Scientific Imagination 
Shape Our Relation to Outer Space and Extraterrestrial Life

Paris, 4-5 June 2019 (Collège de France / Observatoire de Paris)

Organisers: Perig Pitrou (CNRS/Collège de France/Paris Sciences et Lettres University), Régis Ferrière (École Normale Supérieure/Paris Sciences et Lettres University & University of Arizona), Istvan Praet (University of Roehampton, London).

Organisers of the doctoral and post-doctoral session: Joffrey Becker (IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University), Elsa De Smet (IRIS-OCAV/Paris Sciences et Lettres University).

Keynote speakers: Valerie Olson (UC Irvine), Lisa Messeri (Yale University).

Images: Barchan dunes on Earth (top left) and on Mars (top right); Biosphere 2 near Oracle, Arizona (credits: George Steinmetz/ HiRISE, MRO, University of Arizona, NASA)

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Call for Papers

Application deadline: April 15th  2019

(send presenter’s information, title and 150-word abstract to ocavbioarti@gmail.com)

Decisions : April 30th 2019

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In the present day and age, space exploration can no longer be conceived merely as ‘rocket science’. Surely, aeronautic engineering, robotic probes and space telescopes continue to play an important role, and so does in-situ research by human astronauts who have conducted a number of experiments designed to advance scientific knowledge of life in extraterrestrial conditions. But space observation and exploration can now be framed in the emerging fields of astro- and exobiology – what life could be in non-Terrestrial environments–, and the perspective of human and non-human Terrestrial life to be established in outer space, on other planets, or in spacecraft. Think of NASA astronaut Don Pettit’s ‘space zucchini’, whose development he recorded in a popular public diary, or of the equally captivating micro-gravitational adventures of the jumping spiders or ‘spidernauts’ on board of the International Space Station!

But what remains insufficiently recognised is that our knowledge of outer space and its potential inhabitants is gained here on Earth, based on how we study our own planet and life that inhabits it, including our societies. Astrobiologists and planetary scientists are nowadays experimenting with elaborate, lab-based simulations of entire planets and are modeling hypothetical martian ecosystems and alien biospheres in ever more sophisticated ways. The Biosphere 2 facility in Arizona, which was conceived as an alternative Earth-like mini-planet, pioneered this trend. Beyond their laboratories, scientists conduct fieldwork in specific locations referred to as extreme environments or analogue sites, which serve as proxies for what might happen on planetary bodies elsewhere. Andean highland lakes thus become tools to comprehend early, ‘wet’ Mars for example. And the extremophile organisms that inhabit them are used to model alien life forms. These practices beg the general question: how does our Earth-centric perspective on the universe influences our sense of the living beyond Earth? In particular, is scientific creativity – the driver of science progress – enough to study life as it might be, and living in outer space as we will do it, enough? Is it to be enhanced with some form of scientific imagination, and what should that be?

The workshop proposes to address such fundamental questions by examining  practices of planetary modeling and analogue research from a social scientific perspective. For space exploration, at its most innovative, involves more than gathering new empirical data about the cosmos. It is not just about collating interesting observational discoveries, but also about reconsidering modern science’s set ways of imagining the cosmos. By focusing on the interface between rigorous observation and conceptual imagination, this workshop aims to trace the contours of an anthropology off Earth. The call for papers is open for anthropologists, STS scholars, historians and philosophers of science and, more generally, for all social scientists interested in outer space as well as for planetary scientists and astrobiologists interested in the conceptual and imaginative dimensions of space exploration.

Vie terrestre / Vie extraterrestre

 

Vie terrestre/ Vie extraterrestre

La perspective de l’anthropologie de la vie

Équipe « Anthropologie de la vie et des représentations du vivant »

Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale (Collège de France)

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22 mars 2017, 9h30-12h45

Observatoire de Paris, Salle du Conseil

77, avenue Denfert-Rochereau, Paris 14e

(Une pièce d’identité est demandée à l’accueil)

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Paris Sciences et Lettres

IRIS – Origines et conditions d’apparition de la vie

Programme

9h30

Perig Pitrou (CNRS / Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale)

Anthropologie de la vie et exobiologie

10h30

Istvan Praet (Université de Roehampton)

L’astrobiologie comme laboratoire conceptuel

11h30

Pause

11h45

Joffrey Becker (LORIA / Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale)

L’imitation de la vie en robotique entre fabrication et interactions