The Routledge Handbook Of Social Studies Of Outer Space

The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space offers state-of-the-art overview of contemporary social and cultural research on outer space. International in scope, the thirty-eight contributions by over fifty leading researchers and artists across a variety of disciplines and fields of knowledge, present a range of debates and pose key questions about the crafting of futures in relation to outer space. The Handbook is a call to attend more carefully to engagements with outer space, empirically, affectively, and theoretically, while characterizing current research practices and outlining future research agendas. This recalibration opens profound questions of intersectional politics, race, equity, and environmental justice around the contested topics of space exploration and life off-Earth. Among the many themes included in the volume are the various infrastructures, networks and systems that enable and sustain space exploration; space heritage; the ethics of outer space; social and environmental justice; fundamental debates about life in outer space as it pertains to both astrobiology and SETI; the study of scientific communities; the human body and consciousness; Indigenous astronomical systems of Knowledge; contemporary space art; and ongoing critical interventions to overcome the legacies of colonialism and dismantle hegemonic narratives of outer space.

Bringing together scholarship from across the social sciences and humanities, this handbook critically examines the relationship between society and outer space, exploring the history, present and future of outer space and the place of humans within it.

Invisible as the seas and oceans may be for so many of us, life as we know it is almost always connected to, and constituted by, activities and occurrences that take place in, on and under our oceans. The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space provides a first port of call for scholars engaging in the ‘oceanic turn’ in the social sciences, offering a comprehensive summary of existing trends in making sense of our water worlds, alongside new, agenda-setting insights into the relationships between society and the ‘seas around us’. Accordingly, this ambitious text not only attends to a growing interest in our oceans, past and present; it is also situated in a broader spatial turn across the social sciences that seeks to account for how space and place are imbricated in socio-cultural and political life. Through six clearly structured and wide-ranging sections, The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space examines and interrogates how the oceans are environmental, historical, social, cultural, political, legal and economic spaces, and also zones where national and international security comes into question. With a foreword and introduction authored by some of the leading scholars researching and writing about ocean spaces, alongside 31 further, carefully crafted chapters from established as well as early career academics, this book provides both an accessible guide to the subject and a cutting-edge collection of critical ideas and questions shaping the social sciences today. This handbook brings together the key debates defining the ‘field’ in one volume, appealing to a wide, cross-disciplinary social science and humanities audience. Moreover, drawing on a range of international examples, from a global collective of authors, this book promises to be the benchmark publication for those interested in ocean spaces, past and present. Indeed, as the seas and oceans continue to capture world-wide attention, and the social sciences continue their seaward ‘turn’, The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space will provide an invaluable resource that reveals how our world is a water world.

Over the last decade or so, the field of science and technology studies (STS) has become an intellectually dynamic interdisciplinary arena. Concepts, methods, and theoretical perspectives are being drawn both from long-established and relatively young disciplines. From its origins in philosophical and political debates about the creation and use of scientific knowledge, STS has become a wide and deep space for the consideration of the place of science and technology in the world, past and present. The Routledge Handbook of Science, Technology and Society seeks to capture the dynamism and breadth of the field by presenting work that pushes the reader to think about science and technology and their intersections with social life in new ways. The interdisciplinary contributions by international experts in this handbook are organized around six topic areas: embodiment consuming technoscience digitization environments science as work rules and standards This volume highlights a range of theoretical and empirical approaches to some of the persistent – and new – questions in the field. It will be useful for students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities, including in science and technology studies, history, geography, critical race studies, sociology, communications, women’s and gender studies, anthropology, and political science.

The Routledge Handbook of Commercial Space Law provides a definitive survey of the transitions and adjustments across the stakeholder community contributing to outer space activities. The interaction between NewSpace, traditional aerospace industrials, and non-traditional space-related technologies is driving market changes which will affect state practice in what has until now been a government dominated market. Greater private commercial participation will lead to new economic approaches to risk-sharing models driven by a space services dominated market. This handbook is a detailed reference source of original articles which analyse and critically evaluate the scope of the current paradigm change, and explain why space contracts and risk apportionment as currently known will change in tune with ongoing market transitions. Reference is made to the scope of best practices across various leading states involved in space activities. With contributions from a selection of highly regarded and leading scholars and practitioners in the Commercial Space Law field, and the inclusion of salient documents, regulatory and contractual documents, the Routledge Handbook of Commercial Space Law is an essential resource for students, scholars, and practitioners who are interested in the field of Commercial Space Law.

Featuring chapters from an international range of leading and emerging scholars, this Handbook provides a collection of cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that sheds new light on contemporary futures studies. Engaging with key defining questions of the early twenty-first century such as climate change, big data, AI, the future of economics, education, mental health, cities and more, the Handbook provides a review and synthesis of futures scholarship, highlighting the role that societies can and should play in their making. While the various chapters demonstrate how futures emerge and take shape in particular places at particular times, the distinctive insight provided by the volume overall is that futures thinking today must be social and contextual. By presenting a range of futures work from contexts around the globe, the Handbook contextualizes techniques – forecasting, backcasting, scenario planning, collaboration and co-production– to ask how different dimensions of the social are created and circulated in the process. Through its thirty chapters, the volume explores and interrogates narratives, anticipations, enactments, ecologies, collaborations, prospections and so on to highlight which versions of the social are legitimized and which are encouraged and foreclosed. This Handbook opens an important conversation about the centrality of the social in futures thinking. By bringing arts, humanities and social sciences scholars and practitioners into conversation with biologists, environmental, climate and computer scientists, this volume seeks to encourage new pathways across, between and within multiple disciplines to interrogate the futures we need and want. The social must be our starting point if we are to steer our planet in a direction that supports good lives for the many, everywhere.

Communicating science and technology is a high priority of many research and policy institutions, a concern of many other private and public bodies, and an established subject of training and education. Over the past few decades, the field has developed and expanded significantly, both in terms of professional practice and in terms of research and reflection. The Routledge Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology provides a state-of-the-art review of this fast-growing and increasingly important area, through an examination of the research on the main actors, issues, and arenas involved. In this brand-new revised edition, the book brings the reviews up-to-date and deepens the analysis. As well as substantial reworking of many chapters, it gives more attention to digital media and the global aspects of science communication, with the inclusion of four new chapters. Several new contributors are added to leading mass-communication scholars, sociologists, public-relations practitioners, science writers, and others featured herein. With key questions for further discussion highlighted in each chapter, the handbook is a student-friendly resource and its scope and expert contributors mean it is also ideal for both practitioners and professionals working in the field. Combining the perspectives of different disciplines and of different geographical and cultural contexts, this original text provides an interdisciplinary and global approach to the public communication of science and technology. It is a valuable resource for students, researchers, educators, and professionals in media and journalism, sociology, the history of science, and science and technology.