Resonant worlds

Cultivating proximal encounters in planetary science

Bibliographic Data

ID2260892
AuthorsLisa Messeri (0000-0002-0964-123X, Program in Science, Technology, and Society; University of Virginia; 351 McCormick Road Charlottesville VA 22904, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume44
Issue1
Pages131-142
Publication date2017-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/amet.12431
OpenAlexW2573669034
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited42

Planetary scientists are adept at producing knowledge about objects that are far removed from their lived experience of place and time. Sometimes, they overcome this distance by positioning Earth as a planet that can stand for other worlds. Encountering Earth becomes an encounter with another planet. When scientists experience the Earthly as otherworldly, they sometimes feel an excitement here described as "resonance." Fully felt resonance is rare, but scientists devote much time and effort to preparing for it so as not to miss its fleeting instances. Just as resonance affords scientists the possibility of experiencing the distant, it also describes moments when the anthropologist is in harmony with what had previously been strange. Thus, resonance is a mode of cognitive and affective reasoning that collapses distance and transforms the similar into the same

Aesthetics · Astrobiology · Astronomy · Harmony (color · Optics · Physics · Planet · Resonance (particle physics · Climate Change Communication and Perception · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life

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