Taking Samples and Forgetting Collaborations: Neocolonial Practices in Planetary Science?

Neocolonial scientific practices occur when researchers, commonly affiliated with high-income foreign institutions, conduct research using the field sites, samples, data, or environmental knowledge of another country or region, while local scientists or communities remain marginally or not involved at all. Although such practices have been recently highlighted and quantified in the life and Earth sciences community, what about planetary science and astrobiology?

This seminar analyzes patterns of local institutional participation in research conducted in the Atacama Desert and the Puna in South America. These regions are of exceptional interest because of their Mars-analogue environments, extreme ecological conditions, and meteorite concentrations. Using bibliometric indicators of institutional affiliation, collaboration, and research leadership across peer-reviewed publications, we quantify the extent of parachute sciences and the involvement of local scientists in research based on these territories. We analyze what these patterns reveal about the development of planetary science in South America and how research institutions, funders, journals, and international teams could support more equitable forms of scientific collaboration.