Anthropocenes Off-Earth

This chapter explores the interdependent relationship between anthropogenic changes on Earth and their implications beyond our planet, stimulating novel notions of the Anthropocene that are not just earthbound. By mobilizing the notion of the “otherwise,” it emphasizes the need for critical frameworks that account for the interconnectedness of terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. This chapter employs playlisting as a method to draw a series of vignettes through a number of curated soundtracks contained in a corresponding music playlist to engage readers in speculative thinking about the Anthropocene, urging a reconsideration of our imaginative geographies through a process of uncommoning outer space and the socio-cultural formations and epistemic contact zones that arise from these encounters. Ultimately, it advocates for a broadened perspective on space futures within a context of expansionism of space activities into the wider solar system during a decade of heightened populism and anarcho-capitalist techno-utopianism.