title: The ecobiopolitics of space biomedicine.
abstract: Using data from an ethnographic study of American astronautics, I argue that, in an inversion of the usual clinical model, astronaut medical subjecthood is fundamentally environmental rather than biological. In extreme environments like outer space, the concept of environment cannot be bracketed out from life processes; as a result, investments of power and knowledge shift from life itself to the sites of interface among living things, technologies, and environments. To illustrate what this means on the ground, I describe space biomedicine as a form of environmental medicine that seeks to optimize and manage technically enabled human ecologies where life and environment are dually problematized. I provide two examples of what I term its ecobiopolitical strategies: creating a new "space normal" physiological category and situating humans as at-risk elements within integrated biological/technological/environmental systems.
authors.affiliation: Rice University. valeriao@rice.edu
authors.forename: Valerie A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Olson
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000337:Aerospace Medicine / Q000639:trends*; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D018480:Astronauts; D001690:Biological Science Disciplines / Q000639:trends; D018504:Ecological Systems, Closed; D004782:Environmental Health / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D008021:Life Support Systems; D011057:Politics; D013026:Space Flight; D014893:Weightlessness