Off Earth Atlas

This project will consider life in outer space in many different and exciting ways -from what biological definitions of life are to the new social relations that come about in outer space.

Funded by the IAS, UCL’s Cities partnerships Programme and Université PSL (Paris Sciences et Lettres)

• UCL leads: Dr David Jeevendrampillai, Prof Victor Buchli and Delphine Mercier.
• PSL leads: Prof Perig Pitrou and Dr Elsa De Smet

This interdisciplinary project, led by anthropologists, will consider life in outer space in many different and exciting ways -from what biological definitions of life are to the new social relations that come about in outer space. Through workshops, a multimedia website and a high-grade publication, ‘The Off Earth Atlas’, will highlight the great work at UCL, PSL and strengthen our networks together and internationally in growing field of research on the social studies of outer space.

Consolidating and accelerating the existing activities of PSL and UCL around the critical study of life in outer space the project will foreground PSL/UCL as the centre of this emerging field. At PSL, for several years, at the Collège de France, the team "Anthropology of Life" has developed interdisciplinary programs on the cultural representations of life. The UCL Space Domain, of which Buchli is co-director, promotes this activity. The interdisciplinary Centre of Outer Space Studies (COSS), of which Jeevendrampillai is director, sits within the Space Domain to advance the critical study of outer space in the social sciences and the arts.

Image credit: 'Stanford Torus cutaway', NASA/Rick Guidice, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons