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Is there anything natural about the polar?

Part of: 60th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2019

Justiina Dahl ,
Peder Roberts Open the ORCID record for Peder Roberts [Opens in a new window]  and
Lize-Marié van der Watt
Justiina Dahl
Affiliation:
Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, c/o Luleå Technical University, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden
Peder Roberts*
Affiliation:
Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger, 4036 Stavanger, Norway Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute for Technology, Teknikringen 74D, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Lize-Marié van der Watt
Affiliation:
Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute for Technology, Teknikringen 74D, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
*
Author for correspondence: Peder Roberts, Email: peder.w.roberts@uis.no
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Abstract

Are similarities of temperature, snow and ice cover, and (certain) marine mammals sufficient to warrant both polar regions being considered a single object of study or governance? We argue that their treatment as a unit is an invitation to examine the motivations behind the choice to be polar rather than Arctic or Antarctic. For individuals such as James Clerk Ross or Roald Amundsen, logistical requirements and analogous goals facilitated careers spanning both the Arctic and the Antarctic. This trend continued through the 20th century as individual scientists studying phenomena such as glaciers, sea ice, or aurora defined their research as “polar” in nature. Organisations such as the Scott Polar Research Institute and Norwegian Polar Institute could draw on traditions of national exploration in both polar regions, while the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg gained its southern mandate with the importance of the International Geophysical Year. By comparison, neither the Arctic Institute in Copenhagen nor the Argentine Antarctic Institute felt any need to become polar. The creation of polar identity is ultimately a matter of geopolitics, of the value states see in instruments and symbols that speak to polar rather than Arctic or Antarctic interests. In cases such as Finland’s icebreaker industry, a technological capability justified Antarctic interest even without any national research tradition. We conclude by asking whether there is anything more natural about the polar regions than there is about the concept of a “tripolar” world in which the high alpine regions form a natural unit along with the Arctic and Antarctic.

Keywords

ArcticAntarcticPolarHistoryGeopolitics
Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 55 , Issue 5 , September 2019 , pp. 326 - 329
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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