![]() ![]() Obi-Wan tells Luke that the Force is “created by all living things”-but it can also move rocks and even starfighters. The Force itself weaves complicatedly between human consciousness, nonhuman life, and inert matter. When an Imperial officer sees Chewbacca on the Death Star, he refuses to grant him a human pronoun, asking Han and Luke, who are disguised as stormtroopers: “Where are you taking this … thing ?” They were the perfect expression of “ biopower”: the creation of pliable human bodies which can be easily controlled by governments.Īs the bartender at the Mos Eisley Cantina proves when he refuses to serve “their kind” (droids) in his otherwise multicultural establishment, people across the galaxy are complicit in the exclusionary practices that come with classifying different parts of the “natural” world. ![]() As living, sentient entities, harnessed to the direct orders of the Emperor, clones were more flexible and adaptive than droids ( whose most famous line was “uh-oh!”). The crux of Darth Sidious’s military putsch that runs through the prequels is a phony conflict between humanoids (Jedi peacekeepers), robots (the droid armies), and clones (the army produced in secret on Kamino). Not the Droids You’re Looking For: Human-Nonhuman Interactions When the Empire needs something, it’s sure to get it-no matter how many wasted environments it leaves behind. Other exploited planets, like Mustafar and Geonosis, are barren wastelands yielding only raw materials and bulk equipment for a military-industrial system stretching across the galaxy. ![]() Conditions there are so brutal that the mines are a synonym for extreme punishment. Transforming land through destructive land-use practices also serves political goals: it marginalizes communities by pushing them into more precarious situations, where they become yet more dependent on systems of protection and patronage.Īfter the destruction of their homeworld, Wookiees and other species are forced into slavery at the fearful Spice Mines of Kessel, where they work in concentration camps in order to extract a precious drug for export to the imperial core. This is not so different from authoritarian states on Earth, which produce “ catastrophe sites,” like radioactive enrichment facilities, in order to develop war material. To obtain the valuable but dangerous products that are needed to make its military installations “ fully operational,” the Empire finds and creates wasted landscapes. For many galactic citizens, like Han Solo, customs inspections and shipping regulations represent the day-to-day reality of Imperial power. Most of the Galactic Empire’s attention, therefore, goes into deciding which products go where, rather than into promoting abstract Sith ideology. But what made the Empire an empire, other than being controlled by an emperor? The geography of an empire is one in which a core area controls the distribution of resources gathered from a much larger tributary region. Galactic Geographies of Making and TakingĮpisode VII will show us the Empire in its last throes. If we take seriously the idea that Star Wars is a space epic-a story about space, place, environments, landscapes, worlds, and resources-what else might we notice? 1. Just as on Earth, however, both the stakes and conditions of these struggles are shaped by the ecological systems in which they take place. Political scientists have suggested the Old Republic collapsed due to its lack of a viable minority party. Economists have scrutinized the Empire’s administration of a far-flung territory and questioned how it built a second Death Star in only a few years. The long arc in which the Republic falls, the Empire rises, and the Jedi finally return is obviously a story of political and economic struggles-the Sith conspiracy begins with a dispute over “ the taxation of trade routes,” of all things. While counting the hours until Episode VII, The Force Awakens, you can nerd out with the help of social scientists. If you’re the sort of person who worries that Star Wars has lost some of its geeky cachet now that its trailers debut on Monday Night Football, rest assured. ![]()
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