Linköping Space Studies Institute (LSSI) is organizing its first international conference, Democratisation of Space: The decline of the public and rise of the private?
We encourages submissions from scholars of science and technology studies, media and communications, anthropology, political science, history of science, technology and ideas, comparative literature, science fiction studies and others to lend their critical gaze towards this growing sector.
The full program will be available on this website later, along with information about registration for presenters and attendees without paper presentations.
All proposed papers should connect, in some way, to the theme: “Democratisation of Space”. Submissions should consist of a 300-word abstract and a tentative bibliography together with a short biographical note.
All submissions must be in English and sent in by June 19 2025 at the latest.
Send your paper to:
The conference fee is 1,500 SEK and is paid upon registration.
Democratisation of Space: The decline of the public and rise of the private? is arranged with the financial support of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
The conference is organised in parallel sessions. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Richard Tutton is Professor of Sociology at the University of York. His research interests are in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the Sociology of the Future where he focuses on how collectively shared imaginaries of possible futures are produced, resisted and contested through social and cultural practices.
He was a co-investigator on the ESRC funded ‘Austerity Futures’ project (2012-2014), a key output from which was a special issue co-edited with Dr Rebecca Coleman (Goldsmiths) for The Sociological Review called ‘Futures in Question’ (2016).
Currently, he is studying the role of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in articulating visions for the future of humanity and the Earth, which purport to offer solutions to the environmental problems caused by global capitalism.
His current monograph in preparation critically examines contemporary notions of ‘futurelessness’ and explores the contribution of sociology to enhancing the possibilities for achievable alternative futures. A primary focus of this book will be on debates about climate change futures and the Anthropocene.
Eleanor S Armstrong is a Space Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, UK, where she leads the Constellations Lab (on Outer Space & Feminism).
She was awarded her PhD at University College London, UK, in 2020; and since then has held positions at the University of Delaware and Stockholm University, and visiting positions at, among others, the University of Cambridge, Ingenium Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation, New York University, and University of Vienna. Armstrong is Trustee of Pride in STEM.
Her research focuses on queer feminist approaches to social studies of outer space, particularly the presentation of femininities, feminisms, and femmes in public discourses about outer space, published in journals such as Queer-Feminist Science and Technology Studies Forum; Quest: History of Space Flight Quarterly, and in edited volumes including Space Feminisms, Queering Science Communication and Routledge Handbook on Critical Social Studies of Outer Space.
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the study of space exploration, particularly since the rise of what is called ‘New Space’, involving the entry of more nations and private enterprises, like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and his visions of a “multi-planetary” future, often framed as a reignited space race.
It is important to critically engage with the claims in these visions of a “multi-planetary” future, since this is a question of what kind of futures we want to have and who sets the agenda of these futures.
As a result, the Linköping Space Studies Institute (LSSI) has been founded as a critical node for multidisciplinary investigations of futurescapes on all aspects of space exploration and the space industry.
This conference centres around this crucial juncture of the growing power of the private sector and asks the question: is there a decline of public sector involvement in space exploration activities in favour of commercial actors?
If so, what future(s) is there for the public sector? What role can the public sector play in space exploration? To what extent is democratisation a rhetorical foil for ever increasing power and control being outsourced to commercial actors?
Leveraging democracy and democratisation for their commercial projects is an opportunity for us as scholars of outer space to consider what democracy means, what democratisation of space means for the public sector and where the commercialisation of the industry leaves the notion of outer space as being a place “for all mankind”.