Extraterrestrial Human Geographies

Abstract

In 2007, Fraser MacDonald put out a call for human geographers to get involved in space studies research, given the ways that geopolitical systems on Earth are likely to affect the future uses of outer space by those groups that can access it. Hoping to jumpstart a critical geography of outer space, MacDonald argues that human geography’s advances in analysing the concept of space as socially produced, as a system or network of interrelationships, and as an arena for social justice, make human geography particularly able to engage with concerns relating to current and future human activities beyond our home planet. By examining how human geographers have already engaged with outer space and then looking more closely at how geographical theories of place intersect with a selection of representations of human engagement with outer space, this project extends MacDonald’s foundation to be a launch pad for continued research into the cultural geographies of extraterrestrial spaces.