Interview: Making New Worlds

On 15 November 2017, I was interviewed for the ‘Making New Worlds’ podcast, by Erika Nesvold. The episode, ‘Why Are We Going?’ examines our motivations for settling space. The issue we discuss is not about scientific space exploration (collecting data about other planets), but whether it is ethical for humans to settle in Mars or other planets. My responses represent sociological considerations about the inequality that is inherent in colonialism. Below is an excerpt from the transcript.

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Our current rate of population growth is likely unsustainable, plus we have the added pressure of climate change that will decrease the amount of food we can produce to feed all those people. But others have pushed back against this idea a bit, pointing out that we should be careful not to plan on just hopping around from planet to planet, using them up and then moving on to the next one.

Zuleyka Zevallos: “And there is something profoundly unethical about the idea that we just discard our planet after we’ve done so much damage and then go without having learnt anything and think that we’re going to overcome the problems we weren’t willing to do on our own planet.”

That’s Dr. Zuleyka Zevallos, an applied sociologist with Swinburne University in Australia. Her research specialties include race, gender, and intersectionality, and she has a lot of experience running programs that work to increase diversity in science.

Zuleyka Zevallos: “So there’s a lot of problems in these discussions that really stem from the fact that many people who are enthusiastic about colonising other planets don’t understand the history, they aren’t willing to do the work to fix the systems that they are already a part of here.”

In other words, if we don’t take a careful look at all the ways we’ve screwed up on Earth, both in terms of the environment and the way our society works, what’s to stop us from just screwing up the next planet we land on?

[…]

But let’s set aside the idea of migrating to space as a way to avoid the extinction of the human race. What other motivations might we have? One common theme I see in a lot of discussions of space settlement is the attempt to draw a parallel with the American frontier in the 19th century […] The settlement of North America by European settlers screwed over a lot of people. And by screwed over, I mean straight-up killed, in a lot of cases. Do we really want to start the next phase of human civilisation by comparing it to one of the many brutal periods from our past?

I talked to sociologist Zuleyka Zevallos about this, and the idea that even calling the settlement of space “colonisation” is, well, icky. That’s my word, not hers. In her words:

Zuleyka Zevallos: “…while I can see why there’s a lot of excitement around the idea of so-called discovering new worlds and thinking about life in other places, I think some of that enthusiasm does come from a lack of awareness about the issues that we’ve faced regarding colonialism in different societies across time. And in fact, a lot of those conversations ignore the current issues that we have about colonisation. I think many people who have not been on the receiving end of colonialism don’t understand that colonisationis still happening on Earth as we speak.”

I’ve run into this word, colonialism, a lot in my reading about space colonisation and ethics. It really confused me at first because I thought it just referred to the process or history of colonisation, but the more I read, the more it sounded like a much more negative concept than I had realised. So I asked Zuleyka to talk a little more about it.

Zuleyka Zevallos: “So, colonialism is a process that is rooted in historical and political processes. It’s really about how various nation-states have been able to enrich themselves through the economic and social control of other countries and other subgroups. And in particular, colonialism is the use of violence and state force as well as ideology that legitimises taking over the land and resources and cultures of other groups in order to further colonial powers.”

So yeah, we wouldn’t want to repeat the kind of colonisation that happened in North America, for example, where the European settlers violently slaughtered and displaced the Indigenous populations while founding their own colonies. But wait a minute, on Mars or the Moon, there are no Indigenous beings. So what’s the problem?

Zuleyka pointed out that we don’t know for certain that there is no life on Mars, for example, that we might damage with our colonies. This is something I’ll be talking about in more detail in a later episode of the podcast. But Zuleyka also pointed out that colonialism can hurt other groups of people, too, not just the indigenous beings:

Zuleyka Zevallos: “The other aspect is really about the efforts of what it would take for human beings to colonise other lands. And that effort, we know, from history, is one of inherent inequality. The people who finance the colonial efforts are not the people who do the hard work, who will have to build the machines, who will have to, you know, build the structures that would facilitate colonisation. And certainly the people who do that labor, that manual labour, will not be the ones who benefit from any space settlements that might be set up.”

[…]

I asked my guests whether they had any suggestions for what space settlement enthusiasts could do now to try to avoid repeating the mistakes from our past. Zuleyka Zevallos pointed to conversations like the one we’re having now.

Zuleyka Zevallos: “I think, you know, that one of the fundamental things that has to happen is for conversations to be happening with the r— between the right groups. So, for the groups that are advocating space exploration, to actually connect with, you know, scientists and community leaders from groups that have a keen understanding of the history and current impacts of colonialism. So that means listening to the leadership and the wisdom and the scientific knowledges that come from from various Indigenous groups, you know, speaking to groups that have experienced enslavement, including various Black communities from different parts of the world.”

Listen to the rest of the podcast.