Co-sponsored by Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Paper Abstract: This paper considers how astronomical scientific discoveries perpetuate settler colonial occupation of Indigenous land. Through an investigation of the collapsed “sightings” of border surveillance and scientific discoveries in outer space, how might Indigenous land persist as an alien space at the limit of conceptions of human/alien, earth/outer space, and subsequent notions of time and space? At the same time, how do Indigenous relational cosmologies remembered through origin stories, everyday life, and sci-fi films preserve an ancestral science that refuses the violence of borders, militarism, and environmental devastation that is rapidly expanding into outer space?

Bio: Felicity Amaya Schaeffer is Chair of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Professor of Feminist Studies at UCSC. Her research interests include: Latinx and Indigenous decolonial studies, migration and border surveillance, and critical race Science and Technology Studies. Her most recent book, Unsettled Borders: The Militarized Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous Land (2022) received honorable mention from the John Hope Franklin award at the 2023 ASA.

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