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SUMMARY:But why here? Space technologies\, the logic of location\, and the
  violence of infrastructure - Asif Siddiqi (Fordham University)
DTSTART:20250605T143000Z
DTEND:20250605T160000Z
UID:TALK230950@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:David Thompson
DESCRIPTION:This talk is part of a larger project that imagines a history 
 of space exploration centering the Global South as a crucial site for huma
 nity's first steps off the planet. During the Cold War\, when the United S
 tates\, the Soviet Union\, and many Western European nations first began t
 o explore space\, they stationed considerable ground infrastructure on Afr
 ica\, Asia\, and Latin America to track\, communicate with\, and launch sa
 tellites into orbit. Largely invisible in popular accounts of space explor
 ation\, these technoscientific stations\, strewn across many postcolonial 
 locales\, produced a wide range of entanglements with local populations an
 d environments\, usually in the form of displacements of people or damage 
 to local ecologies. In looking at the history of this 'passive' infrastruc
 ture in several locales\, including Algeria\, Kenya\, and India – the ta
 lk offers insights along three threads. First it explores the ways in whic
 h the selection criteria for locating such technoscientific infrastructure
  derived from a certain kind of 'logic of location' which naturalized excl
 usionary practices as being 'rational' and opposition to them as being ant
 imodern\, ahistorical\, and against the greater good. Second\, it restores
  'history' to these sites by situating them outside of the space program\,
  thus linking them to broader political economies and colonial geographies
 \, rendering visible the seams and sutures of a larger story of the (re)ap
 propriation of postcolonial geographies in the late 20th century for space
  exploration. Finally\, the talk offers a methodological intervention\, si
 tuating this kind of technoscientific 'passive' infrastructure (and often\
 , their abandoned ruins) as part of a global (and postcolonial) history of
  technology\, one legible at multiple and overlapping registers\, includin
 g the social\, the technological\, and the environmental.\n\n* Asif Siddiq
 i is Professor of History at Fordham University\, New York. He specialises
  in the history of science and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries\,
  with a particular focus on communities and practices operating globally a
 nd under conditions of stress and scarcity.
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture Theatre\, Department of Genetics\, Downing Site
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