Feminist Astropolitics with Karlie Noon

As told to Kirthi Jayakumar

Karlie Alinta Noon is the first Indigenous woman in Australia to graduate with a double degree in maths and physics, an astronomer, of the Gamilaraay people, multiple award winner, 2019 Eureka Prize nominee, and one of the 2017 BBC's 100 Women. She researches Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University, Australia. In this interview, she centers the values of decolonization and indigenous spacefaring in building pathways to engage with space.

Please tell me about yourself. How did you get into astronomy?

My name is Karlie Alinta Noon. I am a Gamilaraay woman. Gamilaraay is an aboriginal tribe in the northwest section of New South Wales, which is a state in Australia on the east coast of Australia. I grew up on my country. I was really quite lucky to grow up knowing about my aboriginal heritage and very much being embedded within both community and culture, which is something that sadly not all aboriginal people have access to in light of the ongoing colonization of Australia. Growing up, I was very much supported by my grandmother and some aunties around me. In an aboriginal sense, an auntie is an elder. They are not blood relatives – but rather a community elder.

One auntie in particular helped me through school. She helped me learn maths, and get really good at it. Because of that positive learning experience I had with her, I fell in love with the subject. I really had a hard time at school. I left school quite young, at about 13 years of age. Despite that, I still had a really good grasp of maths and kept trying to learn it even when I left school. Eventually, I ended up back in school to do my final years, which allowed me to enter university. Once I entered university, I really enjoyed doing maths, even though at school I was never allowed to access the harder levels of maths despite asking if I could do it and being top of the class. I was very much kept out of those subjects. The same thing happened with physics. I didn’t even know what physics was when I started university. But once I entered university, I didn't have those same teachers who had those biases and expectations around me. I thought it was now my chance! I decided to give it a go and enrolled in a combined Bachelor of Science, majoring in physics and maths in a combined degree. Through that, I didn't really think much about what I was going to do with the degree. I just enjoyed the topicsI studied. It gave me this feeling of like freedom that I could study what I wanted. I wasn't being told what I had to do.

I just found it really incredible. I couldn't think of anything that I would want to spend my time doing other than learning about the environment that goes beyond the earth through physics and maths. I graduated with those degrees. Throughout my life, I had been highly aware of the astronomy that was within my own culture and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Up until that point, I didn't really feel like science or maths was really a place made for me, even though I really enjoyed the, the subjects. I really enjoyed doing the type of work. When I looked around me in my class, not only was I one of the only few women – there were two women in a class of nearly 200 people – but there were just no indigenous people to really look up to in that space that I was aware of. Even now, I only know of one aboriginal person who has a PhD in this field. It was bizarre to me to have both these realities be true. I knew that we had so much focus on the sky and space and astronomy within aboriginal culture, but we weren't really in that space in a professional or academic sense. I wanted to enter it for both those reasons to gain a deeper understanding of astronomy to continue that story of engaging with the sky and to understand our stories a little bit better.

As I didn't have much of an astronomy background, by learning about astronomy, I was able to understand our stories and a part of our culture a lot better. But for many reasons, we haven't really had access to the other side of it, this space, at an academic level. That is obviously hugely problematic. I am very much in a position where I can change that slightly, very slightly. I'm only one person, but I knew that I could go into the space and do that work, and I enjoy it.

We've come to understand that there's a construct that outer space is a common heritage of human kind, but reality tells us it is simply not so. Could you share how techno-optimistic and technocentric spacefaring impacts indigenous engagements with outer space?

I think this is a really great question. I will first talk about our understanding of outer space from a humanity perspective, and then an indigenous perspective, and then a technocentric perspective. From a human perspective, we are all under this simple logic that tells us that we are all under the sky. We are all in a relationship with the sky in an equal way. No one is positionally closer or further away from the sky. We all give and take from this shared sky that we experience from both popular media and our exploration of space.

In a modern sense of space, it is very much considered very othered just like people of color are othered in a white dominant society. Space is seen as this external disconnected environment that we only kind of engage with through facts of its physical contents, what we know about it, and what researchers told us about it. We are progressively stepping away from viewing space as something we experience and are connected to, and seeing it as something that is only accessible through these scientific lens.

That's particularly true for children and students today. There's a study where school students were asked what they feel and think about the moon. Back in the early 1900s, students would talk about how the moon made them feel, how they connected to it, and what type of experience they would have when they looked at the moon. Now, they talked about facts about the moon and what we know about the moon. It's become a bit more clinical. If I could contrast that with an indigenous perspective of the sky and space, it's really not this external thing. It is very much connected through both space and time.

When I talk about an indigenous understanding of space, it is important to acknowledge that time in aboriginal culture is not separate in the western sense. In the western sense, we have the past, present, and future. In the aboriginal sense of time, those things are not separate. They are all very much connected and form a part of us and all that we experience today. When I think about my ancestors, they are not necessarily in the distant past, but are very much alive in me and my environment today. Space is very much a place where our ancestors are, and is a place we will visit, have visited, and come from.

It is very much a far more connected place. It is almost like kin, really, it is just like a river is kin to us on land. The sky is very much kin, and the different places in the sky are very much kin. The idea of outer space – the term “outer” that we often put in front of the word space – just isn't consistent with an indigenous perspective of what that place is to us. It is not external. It is very much related to us here. Even from an astronomical perspective, I think that that's quite consistent. When we think about our solar system and galaxy, everything we have and know on this planet is the result of that galaxy, that solar system, and our star and all other planets within our solar system.

We cannot just package the earth in a little bag, and leave everything else as external to it. We are in this ongoing, connected relationship with a far more extended environment than just the earth. I think the idea of outer space is a useful tool for people who want to capitalize on this environment. If we are feeling disconnected from that space, if it is othered and foreign, it is a lot easier for people to treat that space, however they desire to treat it, in terms of exploitation. We've seen this happen so many times on earth. We've seen people and races being othered to exploit things – be that the land or culture.

When the British first came into Australia, they declared indigenous people’s lands terra nullius, which is a Latin word for “the land belongs to no one.” They classified indigenous people as flora and fauna – like animals, which, while we all are, their colonial approach meant that we were nothing more than the natural environment, and were not people. It was a way to elevate non-indigenous, well, British people above indigenous people and to push us down. I think that exact same thing is reoccurring with space. We consider it as a foreign place.

Humanity is perceived as a superior being because it has an elevated intelligence and sentience, and assumes that it is basis enough to feel entitled to take space.

When we actually consider the reality of that happening, it's not humanity at all that is capitalizing and exploiting space. It's mostly billionaire businessmen that are doing it and that have access to it. In the past it was, it was governments and empires. Today, because capitalism has no boundaries and no roof, the new powerhouses are corporations, businessmen, and extremely rich people. They're the new colonizers.

Given that spacefaring is so deeply entrenched with militarization, capitalism, and othering, what does decolonizing this space look like? How can we decolonize the approach to out space and engaging with it?

I would like to reflect on the fact that I have shared a few different aspects of my culture and perspective as an aboriginal woman and I really think that it is almost integral to decolonizing. I think I am really lucky in a sense and I think it is double-sided. I'm like really lucky, but then it is also a bit of a weight in that I am able to perceive the world through a lens that is not entirely informed by like white imperialism and neoliberalism and these constructs that we're told - like capitalism - so often from the time that I was born. We're so often convinced that capitalism and democracy are the only way for society to exist. We're often told these things as truths, but after spending all my childhood very much ingrained in my aboriginal culture and community, and then as an adult spending a really large portion of it (and will continue until I the day I die), learning as much as I can about my culture, I'm able to see another way that things have been able to work and flourish and exist. I am able to see that there are multiple ways in which we as people and societies and communities can exist. There is no one truth and one way for things to be done. I think it is really important to acknowledge that. There have been other systems of approaching things in the past.

I am really proud to be an Aboriginal woman because aboriginal communities have been able to exist for such a long time and we know - and it really is scientifically proven – that our culture goes way back in time. For a culture to be able to exist for so long, we have to have been doing something right. If we think of modern culture like Western Imperialism, it has been going for maybe 1300 or 1600 years, and the Roman Empire is probably 2000 years old. When we compare that to indigenous culture, my culture dates back to 40,000 years. The time scales are almost incomparable. I think that gives us a lot of reason to respect indigenous culture. It has this really large antiquity and is obviously being tried and tested, and works. It has stood the test of time. Another thing that makes me really proud is the scientific aspect of indigenous culture, which has obviously been very much erased out of our history for a very, very long time. It has not been acknowledged or spoken about. It wasn't until like the 2010s that academia really began to acknowledge it, and even that is only on a national scale, speaking purely in Australia.

There is so much science and technology, and such rich insights in our culture – these have been embedded in our culture and has allowed people to exist for so long. This shows me that in order to do science, to make progress, we must recognize that there are different ways of understanding of our place in this world and the universe. We can exist on this planet in different ways from what we currently see today. We can do it in a way that does not stop us from doing science and from being scientific and technical people.

By sharing these things, we can do things in a non-white, non-imperialistic way. Prioritizing this can help us show other people who don’t have access to that incredible history of space. It’s not only in Australia where we have these stories – they’re all over the world. It is one of the most important steps in decolonizing our approach. We should learn about the other options that we could rely on, we should try and understand what has been tried and tested, and what has been successful so far. I think a really big part of that is obviously working with indigenous people around the world. They are the people with the awareness of these other methods, and have the most at stake when we think of biodiversity world over. Every piece of land in the world is indigenous land. That is the first step. I very much think that we're still at that first step. There are definitely mechanisms that guide us on doing that. The United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples talks about how to engage with indigenous peoples appropriately and successfully. There is a concept called free, prior, and informed consent, which, I think organizations, governments, and corporations are becoming more and more aware of now. It is an international standard of how you should be approaching something, whether it's building a new space station, or creating a new organization. Currently, it is being approached with the notion that regardless of what we do, it will affect indigenous peoples and they have insight, knowledge, and wisdom on how we should be approaching these things.

If anyone knows about the consequences and experiences of colonialism, and how to avoid doing those same actions in the future, I think it is very much indigenous and colonized people in general. We should definitely engage in co-design. Co-design is really incredible. I think it can be co-opted at times, where some people are just invited to talk. Co-design is actually co-ownership, because we have a lot at stake ourselves as indigenous people. Co-ownership needs to be a part of processes in which we make decisions.

What might a decolonial model for space fairing look like, and what do you think needs to shift from where we are at the moment to get to that point?

I think we need to think really carefully about why we do things. That's probably the most important thing at the moment. Currently, we do things for profit and people who are accessing and working in space at the moment are from a very privileged and well-funded portion of society. I don't think that capitalism is justified anymore. Purely doing activities for capital cannot justify it anymore. We simply don't have the resources because even though it is this small portion of society that's funding and doing these things, it comes at a cost for the entire planet. We know this by now. We know that such activities affect us and will impact us for generations.

For example, we have multiple actors such as corporations like Starlink and Amazon, and governments all trying to constantly engage with space, or inject satellites into the near earth environment. We have never seen that number of objects being injected into the near earth environment before. We cannot really say it is safe, feasible, or sustainable, and know for sure what the impacts of such decisions will be. We can't say anything like that because we just haven't done this before! Starlink claims that everyone will benefit and that the Internet will be accessible for all people. This in itself, is simply not true. The people who have access to the internet today – just normal, wired, land-based internet – are the same people who have access to Starlink. The costs are not different. It doesn't increase accessibility at all. We know that the people who most dominantly have access to the Internet are men, particularly white men. We're not seeing an increase in Internet access at all. The benefits aren't even there for people. They have other telecommunication purposes of a military nature – there are different payloads that are going onto these satellites. The intention behind this activity, then, is just invasive occupation of space and this part is not being communicated to people.

We don't really know exactly why they're doing this. It is obvious that at the very least, they are occupying this space. By doing so, they ensure that others can't occupy that space. Who knows what this space will be used for currently or in the future? We don't know whether it's safe and whether there is a critical point where if we inject too many satellites, it would actually not be possible for anything to leave us to get to the other side, to get to space. We don’t know what that critical point is. Once we reach it, we do not have the technology to reverse it.

Currently, we do not have the technology to remove those things and extract these objects from the earth’s orbit. Not only are the motivations of this activity highly unknown and non-beneficial for most people on earth, we don't know if there could be larger consequences for all of us. It obviously changes the sky as well. There are, there are so many impacts of such activity. From an indigenous perspective, because we are an oral culture, we share knowledge through stories and mnemonics. We store information in the landscape, of which the sky is a huge part. Accessing that knowledge becomes complicated and inaccessible when they occupy space.

We've changed those places and the sites where such knowledge is being stored. None of this was considered when Starlink was approved. They gained approval from the communications bodies in the US, Australia, and other places around the world. They were instantly approved. There were no issues, no checks, no drama, no red tape. There's no boundary or roof for corporations. They really do whatever they want and the consequences are unknown. We can certainly take a good scientific guess at what the outcome will be. There's a possibility that astronomy may not actually be possible in the future because of the increase in light pollution caused by the increase in satellites. This obviously has an effect on wildlife, especially nocturnal animals and migratory species. So, the why is really important. If we're not improving the lives of the vast majority of people on earth, then it's just not feasible to do. The cost is too high.

The colonizing approach that is being played out here on earth is being played out again. We just can't do it this way anymore. There are so many obvious reasons why we just can't do it anymore.

Isn’t this why we have governments, laws, and have? Aren’t these bodies supposed to be working in our best interest? Currently, they're working to corporate interests and that's not benefiting us. Why do we have governments if they're not actually going to work for us? I think we really need to question the power hierarchy we have in our world. We cannot work nation by nation anymore – because corporations supersede all of it. They're in every country and have most power. I'm not pushing for governments to have more power or to like reclaim that power, but I'm definitely pushing for people to have more power.

Can our current technology-based and indigenous cosmologies and coexist? If not coexistence, what, what comes to mind in terms of how the future of spacefaring should look?

I love this question. I don't think they're at odds at all! I think they do and would work beautifully together. I think we just have a really narrow view – especially the people who have a lot of power – of what technology advancement actually is. We have so much to learn from alternative perspectives of the world, of ourselves, of community culture. Across Australia, we have 250 different language groups. Each of these groups has smaller communities and cultures within.

There's so much so much difference and diversity and knowledge. Each of these communities have and hold onto so much wisdom and knowledge. If we expand that and look around the world, there's so much out there that we don't have the ability to comprehend. Things have been extracted, compartmentalized, watered down, and whitewashed within current academia, in an international sense. Extant academia is Eurocentric and all that we're researching and talking about, and how we present, communicate, store, and control access to our work have laws and rules governing them. I think if we can expand our minds, institutions, and access to these places and how we do things, more people will be able to participate fully. Currently, only very few of us are able to participate in a way that is not detrimental to ourselves and our wellbeing.

But if we opened up that space, had more equity in the world and in our extant and new knowledges, there's so much that could be done. Indigenous technology is sustainable. Having sustainable action is integral to the vast majority of indigenous cultures. Just because we have never created anything like the mobile phone or anything like that, it doesn't mean we don't have technology. It just looks very different. It functions differently or in some cases, very similarly. The creation of it, however, is very different. Why we have these technologies is also very, very different. Western technologies, and particularly the ones we have access to, as common people (not rich people) is largely just to distract us.

Most of the technology we have is just to distract us. If we contrast that with Indigenous technologies, you will see that they have functional purposes. There is always a process of ensuring the sustainable use of material to create a net or weapon for hunting. Whatever it is, they have a practical purpose. If we can expand our really narrow view of what technology is and what it can be used for into multitudes of perspectives, values, hopes, and dreams, we would see really exciting and beneficial uses of our time, and the very finite resources that we have left on earth.

This interview series was supported by The Maypole Fund.