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Essay examines multi-planetary communality's influence on human and more-than-human relations, suggesting enduring earthbound values persist.
This short essay is inspired by the Arte Acta open call titled Beyond Human Communality: Encounters and Limits, the theme of its 15th issue. The essay introduces the concept of multi-planetary communality to examine how human and more-than-human relations are extended beyond Earth through technological infrastructures, plans for extraction, and imaginaries of space settlement. Drawing on thinkers such as Stacy Alaimo, Hannah Arendt, Bruno Latour, and Elizabeth Povinelli, it argues that extraterrestrial expansion does not represent a departure from earthly conditions, but rather an intensification of existing political, material, and imperial relations. Through examples ranging from the Dolphin House Project and satellite infrastructures to science fiction narratives such as Red Mars and Moon, the text explores how modern logics of domination, resource extraction, and technological mediation continue to shape emerging extraterrestrial environments. Instead of asking whether life beyond Earth is possible, the essay asks which earthly values and relations humanity reproduces in the process of making multi-planetary existence real.
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Sára Märc (2026) studied this question.
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