A scientific confirmation of technologically capable life beyond Earth, though often relegated to the realm of science fiction, would represent a paradigm-shifting discovery, and fundamentally reshape common understandings across all sectors. The field of post-detection SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence) emphasises pragmatic research aimed at defining preparatory and speculative protocols for such a radical more-than-human event: towards "ready-ing" (Nora Bateson's term) for speculative, dramatic shifts in planetary politics and material conditions, and the ontological, epistemological, semantic and ethical domains. Anthropologist Kathryn Denning clarifies that we may usefully approach some of the unknowable questions around the existence or non-existence of ETIs (extra-terrestrial intelligence) by considering the management of the commons.
This presentation shares work on commoning across Post-Detection SETI: the tending of a transdisciplinary and creative research culture that studies the planetary, political, societal and cultural transformations that discovery could bring. The Post-Detection Hub at the University of St Andrews convenes researchers to cooperate across differences and respond to Post-Detection questions in Working Groups and commons-based research activities integrate imaginative and diverse knowledge practices with scientific methods. Our wiki.seti-hub.org offers a collective post-detection Wiki, drawing on disaster studies and resilience research, adapting open-access knowledge tools and emergency-inspired, community systems to expand participation and collectively tend a robust and informed resource. A shared bibliography grows on the work of the SETI Primer (Oman Reagan et al. 2017): a resource integrating varied approaches to SETI science and human factors, including social sciences, history, anthropology, futures and Indigenous research.
The Post-Detection Hub and Wiki aim to grow a longterm lively commons that support diverse responses and dialogues across silos, whilst protecting authorship and contributions. Rooted in shared responsibility, reciprocity, creativity and curiosity, and an ethics of welcome and respect, this engagement with radically unknown astro-ecologies galvanises fresh approaches to commoning in emergency, and invites the space industries and Academia, to move beyond extractive, reductive modes of working with collective knowledge.
