Paper
(Female) African Voices on the Construction of the Outer Space in Light of (Gender) Inequalities and the United Nations Space Fo(u)r Sustainable Development Goals (Space4SDGs)
presenters
Angelika Schweimnitz
Nationality: Deutschland
Residence: Germany
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne
Presence:Online
Keywords:
Space4SDGs, Gender, Africa for Outer Space, Inequalities, (female) Outer Space Techno Science Community.
Abstract:
The Outer Space is part of our earthbound world. The Anthropos creates, explores, exploits, imagines, in one word constructs the Outer Space on behalf of how we have constructed, are constructing and will reconstruct our world on Earth. So, we have done, are doing and will do in space.
The question is, do we as well produce and re-produce the inequalities, we face on earth, produce and re-produce in the Outer Space? What are recent female African Voices within the Outer Space -Techno-Science community?
And what is the perspective of these processes of construction of the Outer Space by African societies? In the 1970s, after gaining independence, post-colonial African states demanded their fair share of access to and benefits from Outer Space, which led in 1979 to the Moon Agreement. Only 18 states ratified the Moon agreement which included the proclamation that the Moon and other celestial bodies are to be declared as common heritage of mankind. A popular narrative of the New Space movement often is that the whole world benefits from the exploration and use of Outer Space. The United Nations developed the strategies Space for Sustainable Development Goals strategies (Space4SDGs) in 2015 based on those kinds of narratives. The inequality theory of Göran Therborn (2009; The Killingfields of Inequalities) and the post-colonial theory of Anne Stoler (2008; Imperial Debris: Reflections on Ruins and Ruination) will embed the collected data. This thesis is based on a multi-sited field research with a focus on the on-site field research at the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG) in Cairo-Helwan, Egypt.