An ethnographic exploration of community engagement with proposals for Britain's first spaceport

随着在苏格兰高地建造英国第一个太空港的计划的推进，我试图理解对未来的不同想象是如何塑造世界的。这个航天港本身就是面向未来的；它的发展与英国航空航天工业的未来息息相关，英国航空航天工业受到了英国退出欧盟的提议的影响。英国被广泛认为是微型卫星领域的领导者，政府试图通过在全国范围内建设发射设施来利用这一领域日益增长的需求。然而，附近塔尔米纳村持怀疑态度的农夫们担心，航天港会对他们社区和生活方式的未来产生影响。我感兴趣的是众多参与者和利益相关者的不同“想象的未来”，以及他们如何塑造萨瑟兰太空港开发项目，以及它们是如何被塑造的。我将在塔尔明村的阿莫因半岛上度过12到18个月，那里是Melness Crofters庄园的所在地。使用民族志方法，生活在农夫和其他居民中，我将建立他们日常生活的准确形象。通过参与和观察他们的日常生活，我将构建阿莫因半岛当地人所设想的许多“想象的未来”。除了这项研究，我将对航天港人员进行结构化和半结构化的采访，以了解他们对该项目的理解，以及他们看到的与其完成相关的未来图景。我的主要重点是了解个人、团体、机构和行业如何设想、计划、抵制或准备应对变化。未来，一个与生俱来的“想象”的地方，掌握着对现在的巨大影响力。英国发现自己陷入了一个未来不断争论的境地，英国退欧、潜在的第二次苏格兰独立公投和气候变化都在很大程度上崩溃了现在和英国居民的日常生活。正是通过这些“想象中的未来”来预测国家计划；阿莫因半岛上的航天港只是众多计划中的一个，这些计划旨在创造一个令人向往的未来，而不是潜在的可怕的可能选择。我问，人们如何组织自己的生活，既规划他们认为的未来，又影响它的走向？这项研究的结果将突出空间港项目发展过程中各利益攸关方之间的相互关系，从而可能有助于制定关于今后类似发展的协商进程的政策。这项研究还将推动围绕与经验性研究“未来”相关的方法论问题的跨学科讨论，这是社会科学中一个日益感兴趣的领域。由于这项研究涵盖了人、政府、科学知识、技术、环境和商业市场之间的关系，研究成果的传播将旨在广泛的公众参与。这项研究的洞察力将有助于展示想象力如何在决策制定中发挥关键作用，无论是在个人层面还是大规模政府发展。

As plans move ahead to build The United Kingdom's first spaceport in the Scottish Highlands, I seek to understand how the world is shaped by divergent imaginations of the future. The spaceport itself is future-orientated; its development is tied to the future of the British Aerospace industry which has been impacted by Britain's proposed withdrawal from the European Union. Britain is widely considered a leader in the field of microsatellites and the government seeks to capitalise on growing demand in this sector by constructing launch facilities throughout the nation. However, sceptical crofters in the nearby village of Talmine have concerns about the impact of a spaceport on the future of their community and way of life. I am interested in the diverse 'imagined futures' of the many actors and stakeholders involved and how they shape and are shaped by the Sutherland Spaceport development. I will spend 12 to 18 months on the A'Mhoine Peninsula in the village of Talmine which is home to the Melness Crofters Estate. Using ethnographic methods and living among the crofters and other residents, I will build an accurate image of their daily lives. By participating in and observing their daily realities, I will construct the many 'imagined futures' that the locals of the A'Mhoine Peninsula envision. Alongside this research I will conduct structured and semi-structured interviews with spaceport personnel to grasp their understandings of the project and the images of the future they see tied to its completion.My main focus is to understand how people, groups, institutions and industries envision, plan, resist or prepare for change. The future, an inherently 'imagined' place, holds great sway over the present. The United Kingdom finds itself in ta situation where the future constantly debated, with Brexit, a potential second Scottish independence referendum and climate change all collapsing into the present and the everyday lives of British residents in significant ways. It is through these 'imagined futures' that national plans are forecast; the spaceport on the A'Mhoine Peninsula is just one of the many plans moving a head to create a future that is desirable over potentially dreadful possible alternatives.I ask, how do people organise their lives in ways both to plan for what they think the future will be and to influence what direction it will take? The findings of this study will highlight the interrelationships between various stakeholders in the development of the spaceport project and thus may help shape policy regarding consultation processes for similar developments in the future. The study will also advance interdisciplinary discussions around methodological issues related to studying 'the future' empirically, a growing area of interest within the social sciences. As this study encompasses the relationships between people, governments, scientific knowledge, technology, the environment and commercial markets, dissemination of the research findings will aim for broad public engagement. The insights from this research will help demonstrate how the imagination plays a key role in decision making, both at the individual level to large scale government development.