I read this really interesting paper one time that I'm having trouble remembering the title and author of but it made this really interesting point that I've been thinking about non-stop since I read it. I'll try to explain it here.

So we tend to look at photos taken of the Earth from space as very humbling images, images that force our perspective to change, and I think this is a fair read, but the author of this paper put forward another perspective on these photos. That of an absolute vertical sovereignty

The author forced me to grapple with the entitlement and ownership that I feel as a western first world person over the totality of the earth and the way this view speaks over and even works in tandem with a kind of eco-colonialism to erase 4th world and Indigenous people

And how that absolute strategic gaze, the ability to take a photo of the earth from space, while presented as a humbling experience and one that changes one's perspective, has also been a part of white colonial thought, a process of our taking

On the one hand it makes the earth feel small, in need of our care, and can drive home how precious and unique our planet is. However, in tandem with colonialism it also reassures the western imperial core that we have an absolute view of the planet.

An "everything that the light touches is ours" drive

I don't think that this makes space travel or photos of the earth inherently problematic or whatever but I feel that paper did more to shake my essential beliefs ingrained by this culture than a lot of other books. I really wish my damn brain would let me remember more

The author was a Japanese man I think? And it was about nukes and liberal eco activism that continues a kind of colonialism?

If my desktop hadn't died last year I'd just have a copy of the pdf lmao fuck my life

Think the initials were M K I'm losing my mind here