Table Of ContentE . T. C U LT U R E
DukeUniversityPress durham and london 2005
EDITED BY DEBBORA BATTAGLIA
E.T.
C U L T U R E
Anthropology in Outerspaces
©2005DukeUniversityPress
Allrightsreserved
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CONTENTS
Editor’sNote vii
Insiders’VoicesinOuterspaces 1
debbora battaglia
UfologyasAnthropology:Race,Extraterrestrials,andtheOccult 38
christopher f. roth
AlienTongues 94
david samuels
TheLicense:Poetics,Power,andtheUncanny 130
susan lepselter
‘‘ForThoseWhoAreNotAfraidoftheFuture’’:RaëlianClonehood
inthePublicSphere 149
debbora battaglia
vi IntertextualEnterprises:WritingAlternativePlacesandMeaningsinthe
Contents MediaMixedNetworksofYugioh 180
mizuko ito
CloseEncountersoftheNthKind:BecomingSampledandthe
Mullis-shipConnection 200
richard doyle
‘‘Comeon,people...we*are*thealiens.Weseemtobesufferingfrom
Host-PlanetRejectionSyndrome’’:LiminalIllnesses,Structural
Damnation,andSocialCreativity 218
joseph dumit
References 235
Contributors 263
Index 265
EDITOR’S NOTE
Thisbookisabouthowpeoplefindandrelatetooneanotheraroundthe
ideaofextraterrestriallifeandufos.Itisalsoakindofartifactofthatpro-
cess.Mostofthosewhohavecontributedchaptersfirstcametogetheratthe
2002annualmeetingoftheAmericanAnthropologicalAssociation,ina
sessionon‘‘TheAnthropologyofOuterspaces.’’Inspiredbyimaginariesof
contactwithotherworlds—whichisofcourselikewiseasignaturetheme
ofthediscipline—ourpapersgavevoicetosubjects’questionsaboutwhatit
meanstobehumaninauniverseoffabulouslydifferententitiesandtimes
of swarming informatic flows of unknown origin. While our approaches
weremethodologically,geopolitically,andevendisciplinarilydiverse,our
presentationsonthatoccasionconvergedatpointswherescience,magic,
andreligionflowedintoandthroughoneanother,unsettlingtheirbound-
ariesandrevealingtheinnerspacesof‘‘alternative’’seekers.
The creativity of the moment proved to be contagious. In part owing
totheattentionofourdiscussants,JodiDeanandSusanHarding,schol-
arsintheaudienceafterwardsofferedpapersoftheirownforpublication
inanyfuturevolume.Someotherswhohadharboredaninterestinextra-
terrestrialdiscoursewerepersuadedtocontributenewessays,off-centerof
theirspecialtyfields,afterhearingaboutthesession.Asthevolumetook
viii shape, there emerged the contours of an e.t. orientation toward various
Editor’sNote forms of visitation—including alien beings, technologies, and uncanny
vision—and how these forms engaged primary concepts underpinning
anthropologicalresearch:hostandvisitor,homeandaway,subjectivityand
objectivity. Contributors showed how discussions and representations of
otherworldlybeingsexpressconcernsaboutracialandethnicdifferences,
the anxieties and fascination associated with modern technologies, and
alienationfromtheinnerworkingsofgovernment.
My opening chapter sketches out the themes of the volume, giving a
viewofthe‘‘galaxiesofdiscourse’’thatconstitutethe‘‘e.t.effect’’inpost-
modernity.Purposefullyex-centric,thechapterinvitesthereadertomove
at‘‘warpspeed’’acrossthematicspacesandtovisittopographiesinwhich
laterchaptersdwellmoredeeply.
Christopher Roth’s historical treatment of ‘‘Anthropology as Ufology’’
demonstrateshowquestionsofDarwinianevolutionwereresistedbythe
Theosophicalmovementthat,fromthelatenineteenthcentury,offeredan
alternativevisionofhumanracialprogressinmysticaltermsthatcontinue
toemergeascommonreferentsofcontemporarye.t.andufobeliefs.
In‘‘AlienTongues’’DavidSamuelsmapsadventuresoflinguisticanthro-
pologyinspace,fromitshistoricintersectionwiththeimpassionedprojects
ofcommunicationwithMarsinlate-nineteenth-centuryFrenchsalonsto
thepopularcultphenomenonofKlingonlanguageconventions.
DrawingonethnographyfromArea51,siteofthefirstcrashnarratives
of ufos in the Nevada desert, Susan Lepselter draws us into the lives of
thosewhoseek‘‘license’’toentertherealmsofofficialcultureforwhich
theU.S.government’ssecretAirForcexbaseandresearchzonestandas
areminderofhiddenknowledge,andtheinscrutableforcesofthepowers
thatbe.
MychapterontheRaëlianreligion’shumancloningenterprise,based
on its foundational notion that extraterrestrial scientists created life on
Earththroughadvancedcloningtechnology,isanexcursionthroughthe
onlineandofflineethnographicsitesoffaith-basedscienceinthepublic
sphere.
Tracing the online and offline gaming community of young Yugioh
playersinJapan,MimiItoshowstheimportanceoftakingseriouslyinven-
tive ‘‘child’s play’’ as action that subverts the values of mainstream Japa-
nesesocietyinsignificantlygenderedpractices,throughprint,cyber,and ix
physicallyembodiedimageryofalienhybridentities. Editor’sNote
RichardDoyle,venturingfartherout,absorbsusintherhetoricofalien
dna and popular culture ‘‘sampling’’ technologies—of djs recombining
recordedmusicorthesamplingofdnabyreplicativescience—thatchal-
lenge us to consider our densely postmodern planetary ‘‘mix’’ of cross-
connectingentitiesalientotheirspeciescategories.
Finally,JosephDumitgroundsaliendiscourseinthehalf-jokinginter-
pretationsofsufferersofdiseasesnotofficiallyrecognizedbyofficialhealth
careagencies—suchasChronicFatigueSyndrome—whospeakderisively
of‘‘HostPlanetRejectionSyndrome’’intheironlinechatsandofbeing
zappedofstrengthbyoff-worldagentshiddenfromview.
Thisvolume,then,itself‘‘samples’’culturalsitesofoff-worldagency—
interrogatingthepoeticsandpoliticsofpower,itsvisibilityandtranspar-
ency,andtheliberationfromeverydaysocialconstraintsthatpeopleseek
through creative action, in the name of the extraterrestrial. Taken col-
lectively as a collage of creative humanness ‘‘designed’’ here on Terra, it
showsthatwehavemuchtolearnfromsuchde-exoticizedsubjects’points
ofview.
Description:Anthropologists have long sought to engage and describe foreign or “alien” societies, yet few have considered the fluid communities centered around a shared belief in alien beings and UFO sightings and their effect on popular and expressive culture. Opening up a new frontier for anthropological
