Extraterrestrial Relativism

This paper suggests that today’s twin scientific interests in the extreme and extraterrestrial ground a novel kind of relativism, which I call extraterrestrial relativism, a relativism about “nature” over culture—and, more, about Earthly, even cosmic, nature. I develop the concept of extraterrestrial relativism using ethnographic work I conducted among astrobiologists and I suggest that this genre of relativism can be brought into a newly inaugurated conversation on “comparative relativisms” in anthropology.