FutureSpace Talk 17 | Asif Siddiqi

Ecologies of the Future: Capitalist Realism and the End of Space (History)

Abstract

This talk explores the historical evolution of thinking of space as a site for energy and extraction, briefly tracing thinking from the 19th century to the present day. Early prognostications were largely focused on Baconian views of nature as antagonistic and often in metaphysical terms. By the 1970s, both American and Soviet visions of space responded to the so-called “ecological crisis” and Malthusian panic by seeing exit from Earth as a possible solution. Alternative visions of the Earth-space system as a sustainable and renewable resource, offered by actors in the Global South, were largely marginalized. In the post-Cold War, we see the framing of space futures through explicitly capitalist extractive regimes—where the creation of waste for profit becomes the central motif of space travel. No other path is imagined possible. We have seemingly arrived at a version of Mark Fisher’s ‘capitalist realism,’ but in outer space.

Biography

Asif Siddiqi is a professor of history at Fordham University in New York. He writes and teaches on the history of science and technology with a specific focus on histories of space. He has written widely on cosmic enthusiasm in Soviet and Russian culture. More recently, his interests have gravitated to space in the postcolonial world. His books include the edited volume Cosmic Fragments: Dislocation and Discontent in the Global Space Age (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025). He is the author of the forthcoming Departure Gates: Postcolonial Histories of Space on Earth (MIT Press, forthcoming).