FutureSpace Talk 10 | Karlijn Korpershoek

The Gravity of a Launch Site: The Reverberations of Europe’s Space Centre in French Guiana 

Abstract

To find Europe’s primary space site, one needs to cross the Atlantic Ocean first. Nestled between Suriname and Brazil, French Guiana is the home to Europe’s spaceport since the 1960s. The launch site in Kourou has significant economic and social influence within the French overseas department overall and is intertwined with the complex legacy of its colonial past. Its placement creates reverberations in the territory far beyond the vibrations of a rocket lift off. Based on a year of ethnographic research in Kourou, this presentation explores the complexity of a “space town” on Earth and asks how we can talk about interplanetary futures in a place where the colonial past still feels tangible. The talk analyzes how the exploration of new worlds can simultaneously inspire and feel disturbingly familiar to inhabitants living in Kourou.

Bio

Karlijn Korpershoek is a PhD researcher at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow in the field of anthropology. As part of the ARIES project, she conducted a three-year research project on the social impact of Europe’s launch site in French Guiana, including more than a year of ethnographic fieldwork. For her work she spent time alongside the different communities in French Guaina and undertook archival research at the Centre Spatial Guyanais. She is still living in the territory where she is now teaching at a middle school. This talk is based on her thesis “A Tale of Two Outers: Studying Up Down and Around Europe’s Ville Spatiale in South America”, which is awaiting its defense date.