Dear all,
Hope this email finds everyone well. We’d like to announce the next session
of the SPT Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology SIG this coming
Thursday. In this session, we’re excited to welcome Reka Gal who’ll
critically reflecting on the common associations between sustainability and
maintenance within the recent "repair turn" in infrastructure studies. Her
talk aims to provide a much needed counterbalance against persistence
tendencies towards the romanticisation of maintenance, by examining the
human and environmental harms which emerge as a result of the maintenance
of SpaceX’s launch site in Texas. You’ll find the abstract for the talk
below - if you'd like a link send me an email at mark@markthomasyoung.net
Best,
Mark
*SpaceX's Staircase, or Breaking Things on the Rio Grande and Beyond*
Reka Gal (University of Toronto)
Thursday 13th June 2024 (1800-1915 UTC+1)
*Abstract: *This talk considers the environmental injustice of SpaceX’s
recently constructed launch site in Boca Chica, Texas – colloquially
referred to as “Starbase” –, which is located on the traditional lands
of
the Est’ok Gna tribe. I argue that the dynamics of this launch site are
both built upon twin tactics of *refusing *care and *preventing *care: of
instituting technological regimes and lobbying for state and federal
policies that allow the company to cause harm to the environment without
being held responsible for mitigating these harms, while also preventing
the Indigenous and non-Indigenous locals from mitigating these harms and
working towards restoring the environment. Through the case study in this
talk, I caution against equating a focus on technological maintenance and
repair as inherently focused on sustainability. The recent “repair-turn”
within Infrastructure Studies has brought increasing attention to the
repair needs of urban infrastructures to technologies. Rightfully, several
scholars have pointed out the potential of a focus on technological and
infrastructural repair and maintenance can counteract capitalist
technological culture’s focus on producing and discarding items (Jackson
2014; Mattern 2018). However, as this talk shows, in order to center
sustainable futures, considerations of repair and maintenance work must
extend beyond the technological and consider how the maintenance of
specific infrastructures influences the care of the environment. Because
the operation of Starbase is reliant on not only resisting but also
preventing environmental care, focusing on the maintenance of the
technological infrastructure would simply mean extending the life cycle of
an infrastructure that does not address, but rather exacerbates effects of
climate change. I point towards the Indigenous and environmental resistance
and activism in the area, together with the Est’ok Gna care of the Land, as
potent and collective acts of care and repair work: future-oriented
activities that aim to care for the integrity of the entanglement of local
ecologies, Indigenous peoples, and other humans and nonhumans.
(In order to avoid confusion regarding the timing of the talks - the
following table clarifies when the talks begin in different locations)
Amsterdam 7:00pm
London 6:00pm
Toronto (New York) 1:00pm
San Francisco 10:00am
Mark Thomas Young
Associate Professor
University of Bergen
https://univie.academia.edu/MarkThomasYoung
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