Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana

by Peter Redfield

Rockets roar into space―bearing roughly half the world's commercial satellites―from the same South American coastal rainforest where convicts once did time on infamous Devil's Island. What makes Space in the Tropics enthralling is anthropologist Peter Redfield's ability to draw from these two disparate European projects in French Guiana a gleaming web of ideas about the intersections of nature and culture. In comparing the Franco-European Ariane rocket program with the earlier penal experiment, Redfield connects the myth of Robinson Crusoe, nineteenth-century prison reform, the Dreyfus Affair, tropical medicine, postwar exploration of outer space, satellite technology, development, and ecotourism with a focus on place, and the incorporation of this particular place into greater extended systems. Examining the wider context of the Ariane program, he argues that technology and nature must be understood within a greater ecology of displacement and makes a case for the importance of margins in understanding the trajectories of modern life.

Genres: History, Anthropology

350 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2000

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is book attempts to describe French Guiana through two major events in the history for that small former French Colony. The events are the penal colony of the 19th and 20th centuries and the space rocket launching facility of the late 20th and present centuries. The author talks about physical space and outer space. He talks about the impact modernization has on the lives of the people and the country. I bought the book because

I wanted to learn about the French space program. That was a small portion of the book. The rest interested me much less. The writing was a bit formal. It was not what I would call a leisurely book to read. For style and overall content, I would give it a two-star rating. Because i know of no other book on the subject I rounded it up to a three. It is not a book I would recommend to most people.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, a good read and an original take on the intersecting histories of space exploration and colonial expansion. Peter Redfield shows us that it is no mere coincidence that what was once the ideal site for a prison colony is now the ideal site for the Kourou Spaceport, Europe spaceport which is located in one of the last colonies of the world--the south american territory of French Guyana. One problem I had with this book is that it left me knowing more about spaces than the people who inhabit them. I was left with the impression that Redfield did not interact much with French Guyanese people, and preferred to interact with objects and things--possibly because of insufficient linguistic competence in the vernacular languages spoken in French Guyana.