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Women on Royal Geographical Society- Supported Expeditions 1913-1970

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Women on Royal Geographical Society- Supported Expeditions 1913-1970 Thesis Terra incognita: women on Royal Geographical Society- supported expeditions 1913-1970 SARAH LOUISE EVANS A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of the West of England, Bristol for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy This research programme was carried out in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Faculty of Environment and Technology, University of the West of England March 2015 Abstract Women’s expeditionary work, in common with women’s geographical work more broadly, has been comparatively understudied within the history of geographical thought and practice, and within the wider discipline, until relatively recently (Domosh 1991a, 1991b; Rose 1993; Maddrell 2009a). This thesis, completed for a Collaborative Doctoral Award between the University of the West of England, and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), charts this terra incognita, and presents a reconstructed historical geography of women’s participation in RGS- supported expeditions between 1913 and 1970, taking as its start date the permanent admission of women to the Fellowship of the RGS. Building on earlier substantive feminist research into women’s historic geographical and expeditionary work (Maddrell, 2009a), it presents a systematic survey of all applications for RGS support during this period, drawing on a range of sources from across the RGS archives and collections. Prior to this doctoral study, this material had not been investigated for this purpose or in great depth, nor was there a complete record of the RGS’s support of expeditionary work during this period: this thesis presents a new and original database which can be used to research these questions. Drawing on these original findings, and on the extensive literatures around feminist historical geography, feminist epistemologies, the historiography of geographical thought and practice, as well as the recent literature on mobilities, this thesis investigates how women negotiated the networks in, around, and beyond the RGS to gain support for their expeditionary work. In particular, it highlights the importance of women-focused networks and familial-social networks for gaining this support. It also uses their participation in and embodied experiences of RGS-supported expeditions, including their expeditionary (im)mobilities and expeditionary relationships, to complicate existing understandings of expeditions as a male-dominated space, form, and practice of geographical knowledge production, thereby investigating the relationships between gender, subjectivity, and expeditionary knowledge production. Finally, it considers the dissemination and reception of their expeditionary knowledges within the spaces of the RGS. Thesis word count (excluding title page, abstract, lists of contents and figures, acknowledgements, references, and appendices): 81,261. LIST OF CONTENTS Title page 1 Abstract 2 List of contents 4 List of figures 7 Acknowledgements 8 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 10 Research questions 15 Chapter outline 16 CHAPTER 2: WOMEN, GENDER, AND THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EXPEDITIONARY WORK 19 Gender, subjectivity, and the production of geographical knowledge 20 Feminist epistemologies, sexuate difference, and the importance 20 of positionality Expeditionary place 29 Expeditionary mobility 37 Gender, women, and the history of geographical thought and practice 38 Contextual histories: internalism, presentism, and essentialism 39 Feminist critiques of contextual histories 45 Conclusion 53 CHAPTER 3: RECOVERING THE FRAGMENTS: METHODS AND SOURCES 55 Archives as spaces of knowledge (re)production, and issues of power 56 and representation. The RGS-IBG as institutional archive, 60 Chosen methods, available sources, and justification with regard 61 to research questions Phase 1 - Mapping out RGS support of expeditionary work: the database 62 Key findings 1913-1970 72 Phase 2 - Echoes and fragments: reconstructing women’s expeditionary experiences 73 Reconstructing historical mobilities 76 Conclusion 79 CHAPTER 4: MAPPING TERRA INCOGNITA, PART 1. 1913-1945 81 Introduction 81 The significance of 1913 82 Background to the 1913 decision 82 Key concerns in the debates 86 The key point in 1913 87 5 Aftermath and long-term impact 89 Key criteria 94 Mapping terra incognita: 1913-1939 96 Modes of participation 96 Expertise and education 104 Experience 108 Sociability and network participation 110 Conclusion 118 CHAPTER 5: MAPPING TERRA INCOGNITA, PART 2. 1945-1970 120 Introduction 120 Overall increase in applications 122 Women-participating applications, 1945-c.1959 130 Mixed undergraduate expeditions in the post-war period 136 The 1960s rise in women’s participation 148 Conclusion 155 CHAPTER 6: EXPEDITIONARY MOBILITIES 158 Introduction 158 The outward journey 161 Mobile ways of knowing and the body-environment relationship: 168 experiencing place through mobility Mobile ways of looking 169 Haptic immersion: other mobile ways of knowing 176 Moored knowledge: expeditionary immobility and knowledge 183 production Disruptions to expeditionary rhythm 184 The journey home 192 Conclusion 195 CHAPTER 7: EXPEDITIONARY RELATIONSHIPS 199 Introduction 199 Relationships and networks with local people 201 Looking back: distance, gaze and silence 207 Ears and voices: language barriers, building relationships, 216 and attitudes to local people Team relationships 224 Logistical support work 225 Emotional support work 232 Networks over distance: relationships with and at home 237 Conclusion 242 6 CHAPTER 8: GENDER AND THE SPACES OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE RECEPTION 244 Introduction 244 Methodological issues and missing reports 246 ‘A Very Worthy Lady’: Women lecturing at the Royal Geographical 249 Society, 1913-c.1940 Preparing a lecture 257 The lecture itself 262 Conclusion 272 CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 267 Key findings and original contributions to knowledge 267 Future directions for research 264 ARCHIVAL SOURCES CONSULTED 275 REFERENCES 277 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Structure of the database, showing the relationships between tables 64 Figure 2: Example of completed record in Expeditions Form 65 Figure 3: List of sources consulted for Phase 1. 66 Figure 4: Parameters for the dataset 67 Figure 5: Overview of all applications 84 Figure 6: Direct applications from women 97 Figure 7: Women participating without directly applying 100 Figure 8: Overview of all applications, repeated 120 Figure 9: Increase in university-associated applications 123 Figure 10: ‘Tahitian Mountains’. Postcard belonging to Evelyn Cheesman, dated 1921 (RGS-IBG) 177 Figure 11: ‘Stella Worthington and two Kenyans, operating a plane-table survey on the shores of Lake Rudolf, Rift Valley’ (RGS-IBG) 230 Figure 12: ‘The luxury of a return to base camp’. From: Lister et al, [1948], Report of the Durham University Iceland Expedition 1948 (RGS-IBG) 233 Figure 13: ‘Anton and Keohane hair cutting’. Herbert Ponting, taken on the British Antarctic Expedition 1910-1913 (RGS-IBG) 235 Figure 14: ‘Lieut. Rennick cuts Lilley’s hair (off New Zealand). Herbert Ponting, taken on the British Antarctic Expedition 1910-1913 (RGS-IBG) 235 Figure 15: ‘Charles Evans has a haircut from a Sherpa at Thyanboche’. Alfred Gregory, taken on the Mount Everest Expedition 1953 (RGS-IBG) 236 Figure 16: Women’s RGS lectures on their RGS-supported expeditionary work, 1913-1940. 253 8 Acknowledgements Firstly, I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the Collaborative Doctoral Award, without which I would have been unable to undertake this research. My Director of Studies and main supervisor, Avril Maddrell, has been a constant source of support and encouragement throughout this doctoral project, providing inspiration and thoughtful feedback, as well as countless cups of Earl Grey tea! Working on a study which has shown how important supportive networks between women can be, it has been a great honour and a privilege to forge a similarly supportive partnership with Avril. As well as being the all-important ‘critical friend’, she has also been an endlessly kind and true friend. I have been similarly honoured to work with my advisors Alison Blunt and Alan Terry, who have both provided valuable perspectives on the project as it developed, as well as encouragement and support. Alison’s detailed and thorough critiques of my draft chapters helped me to rethink and reshape the project, to its great improvement! I would like to thank my examiners, Nicola Thomas, Jenny Hill and Christien van den Anker, for their thoughtful and generous comments, and for a stimulating and rigorous discussion of the thesis and the wider project. I would also like to thank other academic colleagues who have provided helpful leads and useful feedback. As well as providing opportunities and encouragement for me to participate more fully in conferences and research groups, Heike Jons very kindly shared her preliminary research materials on the development of the Worts Fund. Dydia DeLyser and Karen Morin, with whom I co-convened the Historical mobilities and gender session at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Los Angeles in 2013, provided thoughtful and immensely helpful comments on my presentation at that conference, which eventually became Chapter 6. At UWE, Chad Staddon, Juliet Jain and Miriam Ricci provided helpful commentary and useful viva experience in this project’s earlier stages of assessment, which helped me to think through
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