Séminaire IPAG

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Reserving Mauna Kea for astronomy. A social, political, and environmental history, from Kuiper to TMT

jeudi 4 juillet 2024 - 11h00

Pascal Marichalar - CNRS
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Intrigued by the recent Thirty Meter Telescope protests on Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i, historian and sociologist Pascal Marichalar launched on a historical study of how astronomy came to the mountain, based on the observatories’ own archives, most of which had never been studied. These documents reveal the colonial and social underpinnings of how astronomers “discovered” and conquered what Gerard Kuiper heralded in 1964 as “probably the best site in the world – I repeat – in the world, from which to study the Moon, the Planets, the Stars” : how vast tracts of lands were given away to scientists, how observatories imperfectly replaced the islands’ sugarcane plantations and ranches, how the world’s biggest mirrors collided with the environmental and Hawaiian movements. This case study raises the larger question of the responsibility of field scientists toward the sites and communities in which they work.

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Hôtes : Julien Milli

Salle Manuel Forestini, 414 rue de la piscine, 38400 Saint Martin d'Hères