Anthropocene Cosmographies

This book explores relationships between humans and outer space through a geographical lens in the context of the Anthropocene. Presenting a bold and diverse engagement with outer space, the book expands geographical understandings of outer space and reflects upon humankind’s place in the cosmos, all the while shedding light on the linkages between human life and cosmic processes.

Drawing upon literature from across the social sciences, the book offers an innovative interdisciplinary examination of outer space that is grounded in geographic thinking. By delving into a range of materialities and milieus, it unpacks how outer space is framed, encountered and perceived by a variety of social and cultural actors. A new materialist methodology, combined with a mixed-methods approach, is used to investigate meteorites, Dark Sky Parks and science fiction films, an effort that invokes deep pasts, embodied presents and speculative futures. In doing so, the book reveals the interrelatedness of human and cosmos, whilst unsettling the Anthropocene as a bounded and contained planetary condition.

The interdisciplinary nature of this book makes it appealing for anyone engaging with outer space and planetary thinking. This book will be of particular use to scholars and students in geography and the social studies of outer space, as well as those with an interest in the Anthropocene, new materialism and more-than-human studies.