Description
As infrastructures extend into nearly every corner of the planet, wild and remote spaces are becoming increasingly scarce - and increasingly consequential in global politics. This paper theorizes wilderness and remoteness as central terrains through which global political orders are structured and contested. These landscapes have long been mobilized through political projects that view them as frontiers for resource extraction, security, and experimentation. Drawing on environmental political economy, colonial frontier studies, and critical geopolitics, the paper offers insight into the changing role of wild and remote spaces through the current boom in spaceport construction. Along the “Atlantic Edge,” stretching from the Scottish Highlands and Shetland Islands to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, landscapes historically conceived as wild and distant are reimagined as strategic resources for projects of accumulation and control. Through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, the paper shows how government, corporate and local community actors mobilize conceptions of wilderness and remoteness to legitimize or contest launch infrastructure. By tracing how spaceport development transforms older patterns of extraction, conservation, and frontier-making, the paper shows that contemporary geopolitical rivalries and infrastructural ambitions are reshaping the meaning and governance of wilderness in the twenty-first century.
