Linköping Space Studies Institute @ Linköping Universitetet
We invite submissions for the upcoming Linköping Space Studies Institute international conference 26-28November 2025: Campus Norrköping at Linköping University, Sweden.
Democratisation of Space: The decline of the public and rise of the private?
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the study of space exploration, particularly since the rise of what is called 'New Space', involving the entry of more nations and private enterprises, like Elon Musk's SpaceX and his visions of a "multi-planetary" future, often framed as a reignited space race. It is important to critically engage with the claims in these visions of a "multi-planetary" future, since this is a question of what kind of futures we want to have and who sets the agenda of these futures.As a result, the Linköping Space Studies Institute (LSSI) has been founded as a critical node for multidisciplinary investigations of futurescapes on all aspects of space exploration and the space industry.
This conference centres around this crucial juncture of the growing power of the private sector and asks the question: is there a decline of public sector involvement in space exploration activities in favour of commercial actors? If so, what future(s) is there for the public sector? What role can the public sector play in space exploration? To what extent is democratisation a rhetorical foil for ever increasing power and control being outsourced to commercial actors? Leveraging democracy and democratisation for their commercial projects is an opportunity for us as scholars of outer space to consider what democracy means, what democratisation of space means for the public sector and where the commercialisation of the industry leaves the notion of outer space as being a place "for all mankind".
Linköping Space Studies Institute (LSSI) is organizing its first international conference, Democratisation of Space: The decline of the public and rise of the private?and encourages submissions from scholars of science and technology studies, media and communications, anthropology, political science, history of science, technology and ideas, comparative literature, science fiction studies and others to lend their critical gaze towards this growing sector.
We are delighted to present keynotes from Richard Tutton, Professor of Sociology at York University and Eleanor Armstrong, Space Research Fellow, University of Leicester.
The conference is organised in parallel sessions. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
* History of space exploration
* Future development of public/private sector space travel
* Media representations of private and public space exploration
* Posthumanism and discourses of technology
* Private sector space exploration in science fiction
* NASA/Roscosmos/JAXA/ESA relationship with commercial actors
* Popular science representations of public/private sector space travel
Applicants are also welcome to propose their own panels.
All proposed papers should connect, in some way, to the theme "Democratisation of Space" Submissions should consist of a 300-word abstract and a tentative bibliography together with a short biographical note. They should be sent to [email protected] or [email protected] June 19, 2025 at the latest. All submissions must be in English.
The conference fee is 1,500SEK and is paid upon registration.
Conference homepage: https://liu.se/en/event/democratisation-of-space
Democratisation of Space: The decline of the public and rise of the private? is arranged with the financial support of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.