Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology

Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology Series Editors James Rodger Fleming Colby College South China , Maine, USA Roger D. Launius National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution , USA Designed to bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of technology, this series publishes the best new work by promising and accomplished authors in both areas. In particular, it offers historical perspectives on issues of current and ongoing concern, provides international and global perspectives on scientifi c issues, and encourages productive communication between historians and practicing scientists. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14581 Peder Roberts • Lize-Marié van der Watt • Adrian Howkins Editors Antarctica and the Humanities Editors Peder Roberts Adrian Howkins KTH Royal Institute of Technology Colorado State University Stockholm , Sweden Fort Collins , USA Lize-Marié van der Watt Arcum, Umeå University Umeå , Sweden Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology ISBN 978-1-137-54574-9 ISBN 978-1-137-54575-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54575-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940522 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: McMurdo Station on Ross Island © Joshua Swanson, National Science Foundation Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London FOREWORD Antarctica and the Humanities is a welcome intervention. My younger postgraduate self would have welcomed such a book when starting my career as a polar geographer and critical geopolitical scholar. On the one hand, I had some colleagues tell me that the Antarctic was not a smart choice in terms of career development, and on the other hand I encoun- tered a polar academic world dominated by people with doctorates in polar sea ice pontifi cating about Antarctic treaty politics and law. It all seemed very counter-intuitive or perhaps refreshingly open-ended in terms of dis- ciplinary borders. As I began to understand better the academic landscape of the polar world, however, I realised that there was something peculiar at play. Framed by the presence of the Antarctic Treaty System and a cult-like devotion to the notion that Antarctica was a “continent for science,” it dawned on me that some of those academic contributors did not want social science and humanities scholarship to challenge that place-based view. Aided and abetted by the critical scholarship of people like Peter Beck, Lisa Bloom, Aant Elzinga, and the late Christopher Joyner, I took solace in the fact that such framings did not have to predominate, let alone dominate. Perhaps a better way of seeing things was, I thought at the time, to think of how the humanities, social sciences, and sciences intersect with one another. Without the polar science inspired infrastructures in the Antarctic, many authors, artists, and performers would have never have visited, regardless of what one thinks of those infrastructures. What does a humanities perspective offer in this book? Well while there is more than one perspective on display, I think there is a shared v vi FOREWORD commitment to challenge the ideas and practices associated with excep- tionality. While there is no shortage of things to highlight Antarctica’s distinctiveness, such as the absence of a long-term human population compared to other continental spaces, there is also plenty of evidence here to show how Antarctic intellectual and material cultures were intertwined with global networks of ideas, practices, objects, and technologies. Since earliest human encounters, places like the beach and coastal waters of the region, as Greg Denning noted elsewhere for the Pacifi c world, was a contact zone and a violent one at that as sealing and whaling turned parts of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean into “killing fi elds.” Later inland and aerial exploration saw human visitors create, main- tain, and administer their highly gendered, racialised, and nationalised inhabited worlds. It was a world of and for white European and North American men, in the main. They brought dogs, scientifi c equipment, building materials, and even their libraries and made Antarctica home, albeit a domestic space where gendered divisions of labour were arguably quite different to elsewhere. Those men and their sponsors “harvested” the Antarctica as well. They brought back rock samples, whale oil, seal pelts as well as ideas, images, and stories about the polar continent and sur- rounding seas. Antarctica was embedded in political and representational economies, and ideas and images played their part in “selling” Antarctica to multiple audiences. As the contributors show, the ideas and representations associated with Antarctica sat uneasily with experiences and practices. While visitors could marvel at the beauty and the sublime of the ice and snow, they could also die most horribly and painfully. The human body of many explorers past and present has borne the brunt of the long polar night and unrelenting katabatic winds. Wonder and awe could also give way to an ambivalence and even disdain for this “empty” landscape. In the 1940s and 1950s, there was in some quarters some interest in using Antarctica as a nuclear waste ground. Who would notice? Southern hemispheric countries such as Argentina and New Zealand were strong supporters of an Antarctic Treaty, which committed signatories to a nuclear-free Antarctica. By 1961, Antarctica was indeed the world’s fi rst nuclear free zone and while welcomed by many, this did not mean that other communities in other places were spared the spectre of nuclear testing. While the presence of nuclear weapons was now considered unthinkable in Antarctica, there were still those involved in Antarctic politics and science who would rather have had a world where the (white) man’s best and only friend was the Huskie. FOREWORD vii Women and ethnic minorities were considered to be contaminants in much the same way dogs are now considered to be “alien” to the Antarctic environment in a post-Protocol of Environment era. I think what this book achieves is to show what happens when critical scholarship in the humanities comes into contact with Antarctica. In their searching essays, the contributors explore the nature of the human encounter and the interaction with the agency of polar physical environ- ments. One is struck time and time again about how the ice, the water, the wind, and fi re have facilitated, blocked, frustrated, excited the dreams, and plans of human communities in situ and elsewhere. Reputations have been made and lost. Research stations established and destroyed. Animals butchered and preserved. Babies were made and bodies were and continue to be broken. Ambitions and ambiguities characterise the human condi- tion in Antarctica. We have revered Antarctica and we have plundered Antarctica. It is a complex relationship, which the humanities are well placed to interrogate. Finally, I hope this work will serve as a source of inspiration for the next generation of scholars and interested readers who wonder about whether the humanities have a future in Antarctica. And I sincerely hope that generation does not have to address, in a way, the kind of questions many other social scientists and humanities have had to tackle from the polar community such as “why are you interested in Antarctica?” and “do you really need to go there?” This book, I think, shows well that what is inter- esting is not the answers to those questions but why they are framed as questions in the fi rst place. Klaus Dodds , Royal Holloway, University of London Egham , UK viii FOREWORD -90° -60° -30° Falkland Islands O ANTÁRTICO ILEN CH South Georgia R. A N T Á R T I D A A R ER G E N T T I LAND ISLANDS D N A ALK EPEN F DE NC IES (U 0° K) Q U E -120° E N le c ir M -60° C A ic t U c r a D t n A Neu L sc A hw la a N nd b en - D ( N O R 30° W R A Prince Edward O Y ) S Islands S McMurdo Station Marion Island D Ross Island E McMurdo Dry Valleys P E Mawson Station N D Larsemann Hills E Y N Queen Mary R 180° C Y Land O ( Cape Denison Mirny Station T N I Z Dumont D’Urville R ) Shackleton Station R Ice Shelf E T 60° A Kerguelen Macquarie U I C S T Island T C R A A R ADÉLIE LAND L I A N A N T (FRANCE) Tasmania *UK, Chilean and Argentine claims overlap.

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