CfP: Satellites, Data, Environment and Power Symposium, Barcelona April 2026

Data generated with Earth orbiting satellites is essential for producing scientific, economic, and governance-related knowledge about the oceans, the atmosphere, the land surfaces and the ice, as well as the communities inhabiting and managing them. Far from being neutral, satellite data are actively imagined, collected, processed, maintained, regulated, circulated and sometimes used. These practices are historically situated and involve complex negotiations among technologies, institutions, discourses and knowledge systems.

Focusing on the period from 1960s to 1990s, in this workshop we would like to reflect on why and how different social groups (from scientific communities to states, space agencies, international organisations, private corporations, media or NGOs) historically engaged in satellite data work. To do so, we propose to explore what we tentatively call data practices – that is, the diverse and evolving ways in which different actors engaged, imagined, collected, produced, stored, accessed, exchanged, interpreted, regulated and used data generated with weather, ocean and land satellites, and their evolution throughout these decades.

This approach emphasizes the social, political, cultural, epistemological and environmental impacts of satellite data. The study of who puts data into practice, with which means, and for what, helps to examine who controlled satellite data, under which conditions they circulated, and how they were mobilized for specific scientific, economic, environmental or political purposes. In short, it helps shed light on how satellite data are embedded in specific power dynamics that can reproduce, create or challenge existent inequalities, normative values, and epistemic assumptions.

We invite empirical contributions that examine the infrastructures, institutions, and material conditions that made satellite data possible -such as ground stations, launch facilities, data centers, regulatory agencies, international programs, standardization processes, corporate headquarters, and scientific organizations-, the activities and industries they promote, their claims, the institutions and organizations they cultivate, the networks, connections and alliances they create, the resistance that they raise, the rules and practices they foster, and the power relations that go with them. Connecting satellite data to the context in which they were produced, disseminated, maintained, governed and used allows us to emphasize how satellite data were defined, who controlled them, and why they matter today.

By focusing on data practices, the workshop seeks to complexify narratives of satellite history centered exclusively on Cold War geopolitics, superpower rivalry, or big science. We welcome contributions inspired by environmental history, history of science and technology, history of geosciences, history of capitalism, postcolonial and transnational history, global history, science diplomacy and related approaches.

Key questions include, but are not restricted to: Under which material, social, and political conditions were satellite data produced, maintained, accessed and regulated? How are privilege, geopolitical, and economic tensions embedded in the production, curation, circulation, use and governance of satellite data? How do satellite data affect the historical construction of scientific disciplines, practices, values, and technologies? Ultimately, can the study of data practices contribute to a renewed historical look to satellite history? And how?

Date: 23-24 April 2026

Place: Institut d’història de la ciència, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Organized by: ERC-StG-CLIMASAT (some (limited) funds are available to cover travel expenses)

Contributions: Please send your abstract (250 words) with a short bio to Gemma Cirac

Deadline: 13 February 2026

The CLIMASAT project fosters a safe, respectful and inclusive working environment for all and encourage contributions regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality and/or disability, particularly where underrepresented in our workforce.