ETHNO-ISS: An Ethnography of an Extra-terrestrial Society: the International Space Station

Project Information

Ethno-ISS

Grant agreement ID: 833135

DOI

10.3030/833135

Project closed

EC signature date 4 September 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 475 251,00

EU contribution

€ 2 475 251,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Ethno-ISS (ETHNO-ISS: An Ethnography of an Extra-terrestrial Society: the International Space Station)

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The original proposal focused on how research into the micro-gravity of Low Earth Orbit challenges the assumptions of Earth's gravity within the social sciences. Now the research expands this towards the application of these anthropological insights to wider space communities. Establishing the importance of anthropology for expansion into LEO and beyond, the research literally produces that outreach through its interactions. As space moves more towards manufacturing and integration with terrestrial communities, understanding these cultural implications becomes even more important. The research of the team understands this expanding intimacy as part of the overall process of ‘worlding’. This shift in space societies has been very recent with rapid advances in transport between Earth and LEO. One of the key unexpected insights is the role of LEO as a realm of ‘perfectibility’ for terrestrial projects from new forms of planetary consciousness, religious life, to manufacturing and medicine.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The following are some of the most significant achievements of the ETHNO-ISS project to date.

The project established COSS (The Centre for Outerspace Studies) at the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL with project member D. Jeevendrampillai as director. COSS has advanced the position of the social sciences, arts and humanities within the wider intellectual community of space researchers at UCL and beyond, forming an integral part of the UCL Space Domain of which the PI is co-director and advancing the interdisciplinary goals of the ESA_lab@UCL. In addition, the project has established a new book series on the anthropology of space with Routledge Publishers under the editorialship of the PI: ETHNO-ISS: Ethnographies of Low Earth Orbit. Following on from these achievements the ETHNO-ISS team has produced a number of academic publications listed below:

1) 2020 – Buchli, V., ‘Extra-terrestrial methods: towards an ethnography of the ISS’, in T. Carroll et al. Lineages and Advancements in Material Culture Studies: Perspectives from UCL Anthropology, London: Bloomsbury

2) 2021, Jeevendrampillai, D., Parkhurst, A. Making A Martian Home: Finding Humans On Mars Through Utopian Architecture. Home Cultures, doi:10.1080/17406315.2021.1962136

3) 2020, Parkhurst, A., Jeevendrampillai, D. Towards an anthropology of gravity: emotion and embodiment in microgravity environments. Emotion, Space and Society, 35 100680. doi:10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100680

4) 2022. Extraterrestrial Anthropology. Edited volume A. Parkhurst with D. Jeevendrampillai, in ETHNO-ISS: Ethnographies of Low Earth Orbit, Book Series , V. Buchli Editor, Routledge Publishers. (under contract, and peer reviewed)


In addition the following publications by members of the ETHNO-ISS team have been accepted for publication or are in press at the time of writing with others on the way:

2021 Buchli, V. ‘Artefacts of Attunement’, in Anthropology Off Earth, I. Praet and P. Pitrou eds, Cambridge University Press, (forthcoming)
2022, Parkhurst, A and Jeevendrampillai, D. “The restaurant at the end of the world”. Chapter in Anthropology of Outer Space. Ed. Perig Petrou and Istvan Praet. Cambridge University Press (under contract)
2022, Parkhurst, A., Coffee and Blood: A Brief Anthropological Reading of Tiny Mining on and off-world. V2_Lab for the unstable media. (in press).
2022, Parkhurst, A. Gravity.. In Cosmic ‘Glossary’. Ed, Tamara Alvarez and Alexander Taylor. Society & Space. (in press).
2021, Berglund, E., Harkness, R., Jeevendrampillai, D., Martinez, F. and Murray, M., Far Away, So Close: A Collective Ethnography Around Remoteness, ,Entanglements Journal 4(1) 246-283
2022, Carroll, T., Lackenby N., & Gorbanenko, J., (in press). Apophatic love, contagion, and surveillance: Orthodox Christian responses to the global pandemic, Anthropology & Medicine.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The ETHNO-ISS team has been very active in expanding awareness of the anthropology of space and our project to stakeholders in the institutional and industrial space community and more widely within academia.

What were originally intended to be face to face events at COSS (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of-advanced-studies/centre-outer-space-studies) became virtual online events because of the pandemic. The unexpected result was that this outwardly facing forum for the ETHNO-ISS project addressed wider stakeholders and constituencies across the arts, sciences and humanities and achieved even larger international audiences than might have been possible or expected.

In addition to the wider academic and public outreach facilitated by COSS, the team as a whole have integrated anthropology and the social sciences more broadly within the wider space community.

Activities with the Overview Institute promise to enhance the place of anthropology with their outreach as well as establish the relevance of the discipline to wider industrial and institutional collaborators. In addition to this, members of the team have secured additional funding with the 2021 UCL Global Engagement Office in collaboration with PSL (Paris Sciences et Lettres) to pursue an ‘Off-Earth Atlas’. This initiative links UCL and PSL through its workshops and collaborations and expands these activities in a wide ranging ‘Off-Earth Atlas’ publication project working with artist practitioners and curators.

Additional outside funding has been secured by members of the team such as: ‘The Microscale Analogue Project’ supported by the Social Science + Funding Scheme, to research microscale analogue experiments, partnering with COSS and UCL’s Off-world Living Institute. In addition, team members have collaborated with the ParaAstronaut Project: a proposed ESA topical team currently in the 2nd round of review, developed to work with ESA’s stated goals of including more diverse bodies in its new round of astronaut training calls, specifically for persons with lower limb amputations or persons of short stature. This is a partnership with Kings University Medicine, and Aerospace Medicine.

Further more, ETHNO-ISS team members have been involved with the Yuri’s Night series of space enthusiast and industry events, solidifying industry contacts and placing anthropological concerns and approaches at the heart of these activities.

Members of the team have conducted embedded anthropological research at ESA Cologne at EAC (European Astronaut Centre) to produce an institutional ethnography of their Training Programme for Ground Support Personnel that will help ESA improve this aspect of their programme for further development. This research will extend into the Columbus Control Centre to help sustain and further integrate anthropological insights into ESA’s wider training programmes.

Team members have also worked closely with the NASA Ames Space Portal to provide an ethno-historical study for the development of manufacturing in LEO on the ISS in addition to collaboration with industrial space enterprises and participation in the Technical Committee for Space Habitats of the International Astronautical Federation.

All of these activities by members of the ETHNO-ISS team that stem from their research represent unanticipated collaborations and outputs relevant to the expansion of anthropological work in space societies, industry and agencies and promise even greater sustainable collaboration and initiatives through the life of the ETHNO-ISS project and beyond

ETHNO-ISS Project Patch