TEMPORAL BELONGINGS
  • Home
  • About
  • Resources
    • The Library
    • Presentations
    • Interview Series
    • Working Paper Series
    • Related Projects >
      • Scoping Study
      • Pilot Projects
      • Time and Alternative Economies
  • Events
    • Timely methods for novel times
    • The Material Life of Time
    • The Material Life of Time Pilot
    • The Social Life of Time >
      • Registration
      • Keynotes
      • Programme
      • Venue
      • Accommodation
    • Temporal Design >
      • Presentations
    • Immortality and Infinitude >
      • Presentations
    • Power, Time and Agency >
      • Presentations
    • Methods Festival >
      • Presentations
    • Time in the Archives
    • Hope and Community Futures
    • Temporal Conflicts >
      • Presentations
    • Community Connectivities >
      • What we got up to...
      • Presentations
      • Collaborative Sessions
  • Contact

Power, time & agency

Kat Deerfield (Cardiff University)

2/1/2013

 
Subversions of Time in (Outer) Space
Outer space, throughout the research and speculation on human spaceflight, is principally constructed as a space of the future. This is not, however, straightforward, nor is it unproblematic. In Space Travel and Culture, David Bell and Martin Parker describe America's Apollo programme as 'a future that never happened, or a history that seems not to connect with our present'. I argue that this convoluted construction of time in space is underlain by heterosexist assumptions about reproductive kinship and normative timelines. Visions of a future in space are often couched in narratives of reproductive heterosexuality, and space programmes both assume this and actively work to replicate such stories. There is a sense of temporal disorientation in the view of a future which has ‘never happened’; however, rather than subverting normative time, this works to root narratives of astronautics in traditional ideals of procreation and family, such as we associate with the era of spaceflight's early heyday. The astronaut’s body is, I argue, primarily conceptualised as a male body, an able body, and a fertile heterosexual body. The nostalgic quality of the complex temporality contributes to the marginalisation of other bodies, while the ideal body (with its near-ideal, and historically excluded, female counterpart) propels narratives of reproductive futures. Within the same temporal inconsistency, however, I argue there is opportunity to reread stories of space exploration to allow better representation of diverse humans, and to imagine manifold presents and futures, both on and off Earth.
I am a second-year PhD researcher in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University. My current project explores sociocultural aspects of outer space exploration, with an emphasis on constructions of the body in astronautics. My research interests broadly centre on embodiment, science and technology, and theories of space and time. More specifically my research has involved gender and LGBT representation, queer temporality, feminist geography, spatial sexualisation, and ideas of health, risk, and the natural.

Key words: astronautics, embodiment, feminism, queer, technology

Comments are closed.

    Presentations

    from our workshop on Power, Time and Agency held in Manchester,  January 2013

    Categories

    All
    0 Presentation Online
    Affect
    Agency
    Animal Studies
    Anthropology
    Architecture
    Art
    Chinese Philosophy
    Cultural Studies
    Disability Studies
    Economics
    Education
    Environment
    Feminist Theory
    Film
    Futurity
    Health
    History
    Keynotes
    Labour
    Law
    Literature
    Media
    Migration
    Music
    Narrative
    Philosophy
    Political Theory
    Post-colonialism
    Postcolonial Theory
    Psychology
    Queer Theory
    Sociology
    Sts

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
  • Resources
    • The Library
    • Presentations
    • Interview Series
    • Working Paper Series
    • Related Projects >
      • Scoping Study
      • Pilot Projects
      • Time and Alternative Economies
  • Events
    • Timely methods for novel times
    • The Material Life of Time
    • The Material Life of Time Pilot
    • The Social Life of Time >
      • Registration
      • Keynotes
      • Programme
      • Venue
      • Accommodation
    • Temporal Design >
      • Presentations
    • Immortality and Infinitude >
      • Presentations
    • Power, Time and Agency >
      • Presentations
    • Methods Festival >
      • Presentations
    • Time in the Archives
    • Hope and Community Futures
    • Temporal Conflicts >
      • Presentations
    • Community Connectivities >
      • What we got up to...
      • Presentations
      • Collaborative Sessions
  • Contact