Outer Space Beyond Astrocolonialism? Power, Coexistence and the Limits of Decentring in Contemporary Space Fiction

Details

Supervisors

De Bruyn, Ben

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation générale, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

enThis dissertation examines how contemporary space fiction reimagines outer space in relation to the colonial, capitalist, and anthropocentric assumptions that have historically shaped its representation. It analyses Tade Thompson's Far from the Light of Heaven, Samantha Harvey's Orbital, and Becky Chambers's The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, three works that differ in genre, style, and narrative form but share an engagement with the political and ecological dimensions of life beyond Earth. Drawing on postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, posthumanism, and narratology, the dissertation investigates how these novels reproduce, negotiate, and challenge extractivist and expansionist imaginaries. Particular attention is given to the infrastructures, forms of mobility, systems of extraction, and relations of power through which extraterrestrial environments are organised. The analysis also examines how narrative strategies such as polyphony, shifts in perspectives, and contemplative realism contribute to the representation of outer space and to the decentring of the human. The dissertation argues that the three novels do not imagine outer space as a complete break from terrestrial histories of power. Instead, they reconfigure colonial and extractivist structures in different ways while proposing alternative forms of cooperation, ecological interdependence, and multispecies coexistence. At the same time, their attempts to move beyond anthropocentrism remain necessarily partial, as non-human worlds continue to be mediated through human language, perception, and narrative forms.