The Social Sciences Interdisciplinarity for Astronomy and Astrophysics -- Lessons from the History of NASA and Related Fields

In this paper we showcase the importance of understanding and measuring interdisciplinarity and other -disciplinarity concepts for all scientists, the role social sciences have historically played in NASA research and missions, the sparsity of social science interdisciplinarity in space and planetary sciences, including astronomy and astrophysics, while there is an imperative necessity for it, and the example of interdisciplinarity between social sciences and astrobiology. Ultimately we give voice to the scientists across all fields with respect to their needs, aspirations and experiences in their interdisciplinary work with social sciences through an ad-hoc survey we conducted within the Astro2020 Decadal Survey scientific community

Mapping the Temples of Cyborgism: Exploring the Numinous Potential of Replicants in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner

Description: I wrote this in 2007 as a student trying to think about Blade Runner through both religious studies and anthropology. An updated version is in progress. Excerpt: "By threatening binary systems and insisting on an identity of plurality, replicants and cyborgs are granted access to a sanctuary in which they can interface with the numinous place of origin; the place Jenna Tiitsman describes as the chaotic “territory of creation.” The following analysis is a journey of exploration to map the cyborg sanctuaries in that chaotic territory of Tiitsman’s “creative becoming.” This expedition will explore the web of shared conversation between discourse in three regions: investigation into human reactions to robot humanness, relational ordering of religious experience, and the capacity of cyborgs to access the numinous. At the intersection of these cognitive spaces emergent from the “territory of creation” are conceptual-crossroads where cyborgs mediate access to the supernatural. To situate these emergent conceptual-crossroads within more familiar cognitive spaces with supernatural access, I will refer to them as the temples of cyborgism." Keywords: Blade Runner, cyborg, uncanny valley, numinous, creation, supernatural. Please cite as: Oman-Regan, Michael P. 2007. "Mapping the Temples of Cyborgism: Exploring the Numinous Potential of Replicants in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner." Manuscript. SocArXiv, Open Science Framework. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/vwa7

Radical First Contact: Bridging Astrobiology and SETI

Abstract for SOCIA 2018: Accepted October 2017 The astrobiological search for life in the universe is rarely discussed in terms of communicative first contact, a concept often reserved for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). What are the implications for astrobiology of inheriting historical conclusions that there is no value in attempting communication with seemingly non-intelligent life on Earth? By imagining a radical first contact protocol, to bridge work in astrobiology and SETI, this paper challenges the assumption that certain forms of life elsewhere (those we might categorize as like microbial, plant, insect, computer, geologic, or other non-human forms and systems) can be eliminated in advance from attempts at communicative or cultural first contact. A radical first contact protocol asks that we push the limits of both our astrobiological and anthropological imaginations beyond the traditional scope of anthropological subjects and functional SETI-focused definitions of intelligence. By drawing on anthropological theory, ontological anthropology, multispecies ethnography, decolonizing methodologies, speculative fiction, as well as from fieldwork with astrobiologists and SETI scientists (Wright and Oman-Reagan 2017), this paper proposes how and why a radical first contact protocol might approach any potential life, broadly defined, as though it is also a potential intelligence, culture, or agent inviting communicative contact and moral consideration. By drawing on expansions of contemporary anthropology along with other theory and practice this project also aims to help scientists “step out of our brains” (Cabrol 2016) to build methods and insights which successfully bridge key aspects of first contact and the search for life in astrobiology and SETI. Keywords: first contact, ontology, multispecies ethnography, decolonizing, astrobiology, SETI, anthropolog

Speculative Ethnography and First Contact with Possible Futures

This panel paper engages with the figure of the "exoethnologist" in Carolyn Ives Gilman's "Twenty Planets" series of science fiction books to ask about the promise of speculative ethnography for imagining and working toward futures beyond the "fascist now." Keywords: ethnography, anthropology, speculative fiction, science fiction, futures, interstellar, outer space, methods Please cite as: Oman-Reagan, Michael P. 2017. “Speculative Ethnography and First Contact with Possible Futures.” Paper presented for “‘Realists’ of a Larger Reality: Anthropological intersections with Science Fiction.” 116th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association; Washington, D.C. 2 December

Bantar Gebang: An Urban-Refuse Waste Picker Community at Indonesia's Largest Landfill

This paper discusses Bantar Gebang, a landfill site twenty miles east of Southeast Asia's largest city Jakarta, Indonesia and considers the landfill as an extension of Jakarta's urban residential space. The discussion includes geography and political economy of the landfill and of Indonesia, as well as the lives of Indonesian Waste Pickers, and other related communities. Documentary films about Global waste picker communities as well as political organization among these communities are analyzed. Keywords: Waste, Indonesia, Landfills, Trash, Refuse Please cite as: Oman-Reagan, Michael P. 2012. “Bantar Gebang: An Urban-Refuse Waste Picker Community at Indonesia's Largest Landfill.” SocArXiv, Open Science Framework. Manuscript, submitted January 23, 2017. osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/pq7p

Social Science in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Intelligence

Syllabus of social science in SETI and astrobiology, under active development

Conceptualizing Difference in SETI: Xenoanthropological Theory and Methods

Anthropological theory and methods offer new ways to help us “step out of our brains” and overcome the tendency to search “for other versions of ourselves” in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). This white paper proposes SETI researchers draw on anthropological theory, ontology, and multispecies ethnography to imagine “how intelligent life interacts with its environment and communicates information” (Cabrol, Alien Mindscapes, 2016). Please cite as: Oman-Reagan, Michael P. 2018. “Conceptualizing Difference in SETI: Xenoanthropological Theory and Methods.” Paper presented for "Decoding Alien Intelligence,” SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA. 15 March

Book Review: “Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man”

Book Review of "Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man." Lee Gilmore. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2010. xiii + 237 pp. + DVD (30 minutes). Paperback, $24.95 USD, £16.95 GBP. ISBN: 978-0-520-26088-7. Keywords: Ethnography, Spirituality, Ritual, Ritual Theory, Book Review, Burning Man Festival Please cite as: Oman-Reagan, Michael Paul. 2010. “Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man by Lee Gilmore.” Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 1 (2): 163–67

Making Outer Space Intimate: Familiar Scales and Strange Sites (Panel, AAA 2015)

Building on anthropology’s attunement to multiple registers of inquiry, this panel finds intimate engagements with outer space in studies of: the imaginaries of astronomical image making; the politics of otherworldly analog and simulation science; views from the ground and views from space in climate science; the inscription of interstellar space as a site of travel, communication, and speculation; indigenous people’s cosmologies, spaceport construction, and space tourism; and ontologies of space debris in locales both proximate and remote to spacecraft launch sites. These intimate encounters with space shift the cosmos from something remote ‘out there’ into a familiar locale with attendant earthly consequences from awe and hope to conflict and danger. At stake is an understanding of how our activity in space increasingly shapes the ways we imagine and plan for human futures both on and off planet Earth. Keywords: Geography, Archaeology, Space, Interstellar, Tourism Studies, Technology, Climate Change, Space and Place, Political Ecology, Environmental Studies, History of Science, Astrobiology, Exoplanets, STS, Astrophysics, Astronomy, Anthropocene, Science and Technology Studies Please cite as: Oman-Reagan, Michael P. and Kira Turner. 2015. Making Outer Space Intimate: Familiar Scales and Strange Sites. Paper session reviewed by General Anthropology Division. 114th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association; Denver, Colorado. 18-22 November