Culture of extraterrestriality

For other uses, see Extraterrestrial.

A culture of extraterrestriality is the cultural imagination and description of otherworldlyness, alienness or outright outer space, characterizing the other through extraterrestrial space, beyond mere extraterritoriality or periphery, being the space that is imagined or described as extraterrestrial, or simply any space outside a described land. It creates conditions of extraterrestrialness, spatially set apart otherness, unlike any othered cohabiting entity.

Extraterrestriality has been a feature of many past and contemporary cultures. Politically it has been an element of utopianism and colonialism, particularly its formation, colonies being the product in extraterrestrial space. Such histories have informed contemporary cultures of extraterrestriality, informing the prospecting of space exploration and the reception of its findings, particularly for space colonization and the search for extraterrestrial life. Colonialism was associated with extraterrestrial space already in the first half of the 17th century when John Wilkins suggested in A Discourse Concerning a New Planet that future adventurers like Francis Drake and Christopher Columbus might reach the Moon, and people to live there.

See also

• Extraterrestrials in fiction
• Search for extraterrestrial intelligence
• Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact
• Expatriate
• Anthropocentrism