Placing Outer Space by Lisa Messeri

Placing Outer Space by Lisa Messeri

In Placing Outer Space Lisa Messeri traces how the place-making practices of planetary scientists transform the void of space into a cosmos filled with worlds that can be known and explored. Making planets and other celestial bodies into places is central to the daily practices and professional identities of the astronomers, geologists, and computer scientists Messeri studies. She takes readers to the Mars Society s Mars Desert Research Station, showing how scientists transform Earth into a Martian place and use the Utah desert to create narratives of Martian exploration. At NASA Ames, she traces how scientists inscribe within digital maps of Mars senses of place. Messeri also joins scientists at Chile s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and in MIT's labs as they discover exoplanets and combine telescopic data with their planetary imagination to capture both a planet s past and future and what it would be like to visit and live there. The place-making work of planetary scientists, especially their search for an Earth-like planet, allows us to understand the universe as densely inhabited by evocative worlds, which in turn tells us more about Earth, ourselves, and our place in the cosmos.

"To become an exoplanet scientist, Messeri shows (in part by undergoing some training herself), is to learn to see and convey these abstractions as something more relatable — as ­'super-Earths' or 'mini-Neptunes' or such'To excite the community about a particular visualization,' as Messeri nicely puts it, 'is to convince them that the image contains a world.' And to really excite the community, presumably, is to convince them that a world contains little green men." -- James Ryerson * New York Times Book Review *
"Placing Outer Space is a welcome addition to the literature on planetary science. Not only has Messeri achieved what has eluded so many writers—putting humans at the center of the account—she has also succeeded in crafting a compelling narrative of discovery." -- Matthew Shindell * Physics Today *
"Messeri’s book is an excellent addition to both the increasing scholarship concerning the cosmos in science and technology studies and the resurgent field of outer space anthropology. Her thorough analysis of place-making practices by an often insulated community is accompanied by her vivid and absorbing ethnographic writing. Placing Outer Space is an excellent example of academic writing that is supremely beneficial and accessible to both the academy and the public" -- Taylor R. Genovese * LSE Review of Books *
"Messeri is to be commended for crafting an engaging account that is fully accessible to an outside audience. Her beautiful ethnographic narrative and clear applications of theory make her readers feel comfortable. . . . For anthropologists attempting to pen a scholarly monograph that engages both the broader public and the community they study, this is a worthy example." -- Janet Vertesi * American Anthropologist *
"Lisa Messeri's spirit of adventurous ethnographic contact carries the day, delivering new insights into off-Earth explorations by experts and amateurs alike. In bringing us, up close, to those engaged in fashioning new home worlds and remapping the cosmos, Messeri urges us to follow the future making. That enterprise is in good hands." -- Debbora Battaglia * American Ethnologist *
"A thoughtful investigation of planetary science. . . . Students of the history of science and astronomy will find many new ideas here that are worth pondering." -- Maria Lane * Journal of Anthropological Research *
"A first-rate example of ethnographic research into the epistemological frameworks that shape the work of astronomers engaged in planetary science. Messeri has produced a superb discussion of how scientists move the unfamiliar into the realm of the familiar." -- John W. Traphagan * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *

Lisa Messeri is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780822361879
ISBN 10	0822361876
Title	Placing Outer Space
Author	Lisa Messeri
Series	Experimental Futures
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Duke University Press
Year published	2016-09-09
Number of pages	248
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.