This paper considers possible futures for human space settlements through the life story and experiences of David Vetter—a child born with severe combined immunodeficiency who became known in popular media as the “bubble boy.” Lynn Margulis imagined the creation of ecosystems and human settlements on another planet could be an act of Gaia reproducing by budding, through ecopoiesis. Thinking with Margulis about humans as holobionts, our species is both constituted by and embedded within communities of organisms and ecologies. As holobionts we may not be able to live outside of these communities and systems or away from Earth, even if we can temporarily survive without them. Placed within an evolutionary framework, techno-capitalist imaginaries of space settlement limit conceptions of planetary reproduction to heteronormative models of ecopoiesis which promote competition as a key driver of evolution instead of cooperation. Technologically mediated survival along with forced reproduction of holobionts within Earth-like systems and could lead to suffering and isolation like David Vetter’s forced survival in a bubble. I propose alternative liberatory modes of conceptualizing and materializing space migration (including queer and decolonized forms of reproduction) which better respect the Earth, its inhabitants, as well as extraterrestrial planets, landscapes, lives, and possibilities. Cite as: Oman-Reagan, Michael P. “Politics of Planetary Reproduction and the Children of Other Worlds.” Futures. (Forthcoming, 2019)
Politics of Planetary Reproduction and the Children of Other Worlds