Feminist Astropolitics with Dr Inga Popovaite
As told to Kirthi Jayakumar
Dr Inga Popovaite is a researcher at Kaunas University of Technology Faculty of Social Sciences, Art, and Humanities. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Iowa, and in her research, she explores small group dynamics in space analog environments with a focus on gender and emotions. In this interview, she speaks about her work, observations, and views on decolonizing outer space.
Photo Credits: Dr Inga Popovaite
What got you interested in working in outer space?
My background is interesting and varied. I have a bachelor's degree in journalism. Then, I studied nationalism studies at Central European University in Budapest. Following that, I went to the United States and studied sociology. I got into space through a roundabout way by looking at all the things I did not want to do. When I was in the United States, people looked at me as someone from Eastern Europe, and assumed that I would do comparative studies based on what they thought people from my region tended to do. I did not want to do that. My contributions did not have to be constrained by the part of the world I came from. Having read a lot of science fiction, I was already interested in different worlds, societies, and systems. That got me curious about societies outside of earth. For example, while watching Star Trek, I noticed how women were psychologists, cooks, and support staff, while the men were executive officers and commanders and the like.
During grad school, I worked in an experimental sociology laboratory, where we looked at human interaction, how we make decisions, how our assumptions of others play a role, and how we defer to different people. It’s not always based on actual knowledge – we tend to form our ideas of people based on assumptions we form, often in relation to where they come from, what they say, and how they look and talk. I wanted to see how these things might play out in a different place – such as the International Space Station or somewhere outside Earth. I zoomed in on gender as an identity attribute – although, of course, we can study the impact of race, ethnicity, and other attributes. I wanted to see how sociological concepts can be transferred to spaces where they have not been applied much.
Around this time, I came upon a lot of archival data from people doing space analog research in Utah, the Mars Society They kindly allowed me to use their data and to participate in one of their analog missions.
We hear of space being the common heritage of humankind and how everybody owns it. In reality, when it comes to accessibility, this does not translate. Do you think this is a function of the lack of diversity in the field? Or is there more at work that's causing this?
Of course, we can look at the lack of diversity, but it is the easy way out. A lot of corporations, big space organizations, and people in policy and engineering tend to look at diversity: We hear them say things like “We need more women!” or “We need more indigenous voices!” However, they stop with that. Of course, we do need all these voices, but it doesn’t end there. We see a lot of effort go into research, and conducting surveys and listening to experiences, but these efforts get stuck at the HR level and don’t go anywhere beyond that. At most, we see a company policy being drafted. Maybe some people’s lives get better, but this is only a very small part of the big picture.
When you look at the macro level, we see that diversity is really just an easy way out. It is, of course, very encouraging for young girls to see more women in engineering. Of course, it tells girls that they can code and have all these amazing careers, but none of these things address any of the underlying structural barriers to meaningful inclusion and the micro-interactions. A lot of these efforts become like gender-washing or publicity stunts. For instance, when we put up pictures of women as astronauts and then inspire girls to become astronauts, it’s all looking great on paper. But, in focusing on just role modelling, we’re forgetting all the other work around this. How are we subjecting children to gendered upbringings in different countries? There is also the question of what science we teach whom. In focusing just on diversity, we’re not addressing structural factors, which are harder to address. There are major structural hurdles: Capitalist extraction and expansion, resource inequality, and the inequities in the distribution of the benefits of using space. Without addressing these issues, no attempts at achieving diversity will make a difference.
You've been focusing on gender dynamics in space analog environments. Not a lot of people are even thinking about it, much less talking about it. What have you found in your work on this area?
My dissertation focused on gender, emotions, status, and leadership within space analog environments. What I observed did not surprise me at all: I noticed that gender influenced how folks interacted.. For example, in one of the papers I wrote, I looked into extra vehicular activity (EVA) participation, where you wear a spacesuit in a simulation of life on Mars. These activities are not left to each one to self-determine: There is a mission control mechanism that determines who does what, when, and how. Tasks are restricted in terms of scope and duration, and in relation to the success of the larger team. I found that women went on space walks, that is, on Mars walks, about six percentage points less than men. .In another paper I talk how women serving as commanders presented more a community and communal focus than men. . A lot of this did not surprise me as a sociologist, but it unlocked possibilities for future research
I am currently working on the implications of informal hierarchies on emotional wellbeing in space analog missions, especially to see how group dynamics influence positive feelings and emotions. I’m also part of a research team supported by a grant from the Lithuanian Council of Research, where we look into geopolitical, and economical changes in the space sector, how state actors are replaced by big companies and explore global implications of these changes
Let’s talk about that a bit more. What is shifting in the sector with the change of hands?
States are no longer the only actors in outer space. We’re seeing the private sector engaging in all the contracts concerning outer space, and we’re also seeing how private companies are at play – but they are grounded in state interests, too. So effectively, I think, this is th same colonial, capital, and militaristic thinking, the same structural underpinnings, but with different actors. In the European space sector, it looks different only because there is a supernational identity over smaller state-specific spacefaring identity, as the European Space Agency is drawing on resources from the members of the EU, so there is some cooperation there, but also partially as a reaction to global competition with other big players, such as the US or China.
Knowing what we know now in terms of who is accessing space and who is benefiting and not benefitting from this access, do you feel optimistic about a decolonial approach to spacefaring? Is it even possible?
I don't feel positive about it, honestly. It is hard to talk about space decolonization when we haven't decolonized Earth. What we haven’t done here is not going to happen there – I see that we’re just going in the opposite direction and making spacefaring all about who gets to space first. The lack of regulation and understanding of space as a common good is alarming. Look at what we’ve done with the Arctic circle – we’re fighting each other now because the ice is melting and there’s oil. Instead of paying attention to how the ice is melting and we need to address it, we’re worried about how we need to get to the oil first. The same goes for space. There are resources out there that are still out of reach – but we’re thinking of it in terms of being there for us to take, to access, and to appropriate. We are seeing this unfold within the earth orbit, too, where the satellites are. – We’re trashing space orbit with debris, making it more dangerous to maneuver; we are robbing people off the night sky. Sky rubbish is falling down on people’s houses and lands. We put capital gains front and center in this process, so how are we going to decolonize space?
Everything is interconnected. We have not decolonized earth. We are living in echo chambers with little resistance bubbles. We still function within the same overarching social and economic norms. We can’t even seem to agree on ways to stop climate change here! The optimistic future feels hard to imagine.
