Anthropolgy Off Earth

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, "Sciences and technology studies" 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