American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Providing the history and significance of the varied collection of articles in this American Indian Culture and Research Journal special issue, coeditors David Shorter and Kim TallBear describe involvement in an Indigenous studies working group formed in conjunction with the Making Contact 2018 workshop hosted by the Berkeley SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research Center. As a whole, “Settler Science, Alien Contact, and Searches for Intelligence” takes a critical eye to frontiers, space exploration, the history of science, and the colonial politics of surveillance technologies.

In 2018, the authors were invited to share their perspectives as Indigenous studies scholars to the work of Breakthrough Listen, an organization affiliated with both the Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC) and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This collectively authored statement highlights some of the ethical concerns these authors perceived regarding the history colonialism and the expectations to find “advanced” or “intelligent” extraterrestrial life. A prologue contextualizes the short working group statement and we then provide the unedited original statement in its entirety.

This article posits that the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life (SETI) remains grounded in a hierarchical and progressivist worldview that has fueled colonialism throughout history. Building upon the work of Enrique Dussel and Arthur Lovejoy in particular, the author demonstrates how previous earthly explorations produced a covering over of others, rather than a “discovery.” Those working in SETI fields must consider these histories. This article advocates for more engagement with Indigenous studies scholarship to reach a genuine frontier—a metaparadigm shift beyond object-oriented scientific methods, which are a key component of what the author calls “settler science.”

This article traces parallels between James Cook’s 1768 Endeavour voyage to measure the transit of Venus and current initiatives searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). While separated by vast time and space, both are united in their appeal to celestial frontier science in the service of all humanity, and contain discrepancies between their ethical protocols and probable outcomes. Past, present, and future colonial projects are interwoven by drawing on Dipesh Chakrabarty’s “time-knot,” Star Trek’s “prime directive,” and firsthand experience in SETI’s Indigenous studies working group. This analysis cautions against the current trend toward unabated interstellar imperialism and suggests alternative approaches for engaging outer spaces and beings through celestial wayfinding.

Astronomers conducting searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) have long been interested in the history of “first contact” between foreign civilizations as a proxy for extraterrestrial contact and have often employed frontier metaphors and colonial analogies in their pursuit of extraterrestrials. This article shows this language was more than mere rhetoric; drawing from the history of Orientalism and the US frontier, this article investigates SETI’s physical and disciplinary homes, ultimately arguing that, even when attempting to convey universality, SETI scientist’s pursuit of the alien was shaped by cultural power structures such as gender and colonialism.

Conquest of new frontiers in the universe requires the colonization of old ones. This article interrogates technoscience desires to explore outer space, and how time and territory for discovering extraterrestrials and habitable planets are organized through settler colonialism on our own. Examining modern astronomy at Mauna Kea, I argue the technoscientific promise of the Thirty Meter Telescope hinges on a temporality of lateness—late to show up and late in time—that contributes to the dehumanization, elimination, and dispossession of Kanaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of Hawai‘i. I demonstrate further that kia‘i—mountain protectors— unsettle technoscientific conquest by cruising Mauna Kea as an alternative tempo that disrupts the pace of building the observatory.

In the 1970s a string of cattle mutilations grabbed national attention. Thousands of cows in twenty-one states were turning up dead under suspicious circumstances. The culprits left no tire tracks or footprints, only exsanguinated cows missing trademark body parts. Many members of the public suspected (and still suspect) aliens were responsible. This article analyzes FBI files on the mutilations and reveals the central role Indian land played in the FBI’s search for the cow killers. It then wields Indian land to launch an Indigenous critique of settler speculations about the alien.

How is colonialism connected to American relationships with extraterrestrial beings? This commentary analyzes contemporary and founding US mythologies as constant, calculated attempts for settlers to obtain indigeneity in this land stemming from a fear of the “unknown.” From Columbus’s arrival to the Boston Tea Party, from alien and UFO fervor to paranormal experiences, spiritualism, New Age, and American Wicca, American mythology endlessly recreates conspiracy theories to justify its insatiable desire for resource extraction. I examine the US American mythology of extraterrestrials from two directions: the Oglala Lakota perspective of spirits born through a constellation of stars, and the “American” perspective of extraterrestrials born out of settler futurities. Manifest Destiny goes so far as to take ownership over time and reconfigure it into a linear, one-way street that is a progression towards apocalypse. For American Indians and other peoples targeted by the United States government, conspiracy theories prove true. Those who are targeted, Native and otherwise, understand as the violence of American mythology pours across the continent—abduction and assimilation, or death. How can Indigenous nonhuman ontologies orient settler ethics for the future?

This essay is voiced by “IZ,” a character personifying the evolving field of “Native American” or “Indigenous” studies in the United States. IZ was introduced to readers in Aileen Moreton Robinson’s edited volume Critical Indigenous Studies: Engagements in First World Locations (2016), in which Moreton-Robinson wrote: “Twenty years into this century, Indigenous-centered approaches to knowledge production are thriving” and our “object of study is colonizing power in its multiple forms, whether the gaze is on Indigenous issues or on Western knowledge production.” Today, “critical Indigenous studies” represents a coming together of multiple national engagements by Indigenous scholars and sovereignty movements with universities around the world. In this essay, IZ’s object of study and critical polydisciplinamorous Indigenous engagement is a scientist searching for signs of “intelligent” life off-Earth.