Thawing stereotypes; writing diversity & inclusion back into Antarctica Flashcards
Antarctica and the Humanities: introduction
The humanities have so far neglected Antarctic due to an overly scientific focus/definition of the continent.
* However, Antarctica is not non-human but a prominent cultural imaginary
* E.g. ideas of ‘going there’ to the Heroic Frontier captured Western imaginations during highly publicised races for personal and national glory. These expeditions were linked to science as they were judged on the value of their intellectual commitment
* Over time, we can track the shifting frames of how Antarctic has been understood as a space
* ‘Going there’ discourse perpetuates the sense that Antarctica is a subject best described by those who have directly experienced it
The Antarctic is a series of representations that are distilled and packaged by humans.
Roberts et al (2016)
The White Supremacist Continent: Antarctica and Nazi Fantasies
Explores the myth in the late 1930s that Nazi Germany had constructed an Antarctic base to which Hitler had fled.
The continent lends itself to conspiracy theories because the construction of Antarctica as a remote physical environment plays a crucial role in framing the possible narratives that could be inscribed upon it
Roberts (2016)
The Whiteness of Antarctica: Race and South Africa’s Antarctic history
South Africa’s engagement with Antarctica during apartheid was embedded in narratives of white supremacy and paternalism.
Dominant narrative of Antarctica as a white continent reinforced a sense of white racial exclusivity.
People of colour were invisible workers that literally got the white South Africans to Antarctica as crew-members
Van der Watt & Swart (2016)
An empire of ice: Scott and Shackleton
Book places the work of three well-known expeditions (Scott and Shackleton) into a broader scientific and cultural context reaching back to the Victorian era.
* The RGS and Royal Society were more focused on scientific enterprise than a record-chasing dash to the pole.
* Expeditions always had a larger purpose
* Science serving empire and conquest
Larson (2011)
The last great quest: Scott’s sacrifice
South Pole was the ‘last great quest’
Role of the RGS in enabling the explorer-hero. Key Victorian idea of character: manly nature involving self-restraint, perserverance and courage which transformed even failure into triumph of maniliness.
Journey not just to the pole but into the self.
Dead represented as national martyrs who left a triumphant retort to prophets of national decline worried about the demise of religion.
Jones (2004)
Gender on ice: American ideologies of polar expeditions.
- Official U.S. histories of polar expeditions systematically exclude women and men of colour
- Polar expeditions linked to ideologies of modernity and progress
Bloom (1993)
Settling and unsettling Antarctica
Women today have an ambivalent position in the Arctic
* Both excluded and instrumentalised from/in formal colonising process
* Used to settle th econtinent e.g. Argentine and Chilean practice of flying down pregnant women in late 1970s - what does it mean to be Indigenous?
Dodds (2009)
Australian Antarctic Territory: a Man’s World?
AAT comprises 42% of the continent and is a man’s world: until 1975, Australia did not allow women to work there at all.
* Projection of idealised Australian masculinity
* But masculine imperial exploration must cement itself through ultimate domestication and settlement (feminine)
* E.g. base upgraded in 1980s to include women’s facilities but the Weddell hut’s Sistine ceiling, composed of porn pinups, was declared a heritage site of high significance
Collis (2009)
Placing women in the Antarctic literary landscape
Article focuses on imaginative histories of women and their relationships with Antarctica through literary analysis.
Leane (2009)
Transforming Antarctic management and policy with an Indigenous Ma-ori lens
Wehi et al (2021)
Why Pride matters for doing better polar research
Polar research requires teamwork drawing on a diverse set of expertise
However, minority groups continue to be under-represented
Advantages can only be realised if everybody who is part of the team has a voice without fear of judgement or recrimination
Léa (2023)
Diversity in polar science
1.8% of UK STEM professors are Black
Diversity in UK Polar Science Intiative tries to enhance opportunities in science for historically underrepresented groups
Griffiths et al (2021)
Women need not apply
BAS has explicitly barred women from travel to the Antarctic
Eventual integration of women had more to do with the alignment of gender progress with other, higher priority institutional goals such as prestige and financial security
Seag (2017)
Have you been there? Some thoughts on not visiting the Antarctic
- Visiting places confers a sense of legitimacy especially re Antarctic due to lack of IP and harsh envt
- Much literature draws on personal experience - hangover of traveller’s diary
- Some evidence is inaccessible without physical going there
- But going there is not universal: every experience differs e.g. Argentina and Chile draw on being near, rather than far
- Much of history has been written without visiting and some of it has actually taken place outside of the continent
- We can view places from multiple perspectives which mean we don’t always need to ‘go there’
Howkins (2010)
On an ethic of not going there
‘Going there’- embodied experience which gives research authority and expertise
‘Not (always) going there’ - just because you can go, doesn’t mean you always should
Critiques:
* Feminist geographies: male, white and able-bodied subject. When pandemic hit - because everyone was affected - suddenly not doing fieldwork became valid
* Assuming access to colonial imaginaries of exotified places which are turned into sites of discovery
We need to question the necessity and neutrality of fieldwork
Guasco (2022)
