Post-colonial Antarctica: an emerging engagement

Abstract

This paper outlines an emerging post-colonial engagement with Antarctica. Although ‘post-colonialism’ is a term that covers a great diversity of theoretical and political perspectives, it is generally agreed that it is united in its critical evaluation of colonialism and associated practices. Antarctica, thus far, has not attracted a great deal of attention from post-colonial scholars. By drawing on the limited engagement with Antarctica thus far, it is proposed that there are the intellectual resources for a deeper interrogation of polar colonialism and associated practices such as territorial claiming and base construction. The paper is intended to be a starting point for a more sustained and potentially unsettling engagement with post-colonial Antarctic projects.

Is it all going south? Four future scenarios for Antarctica

“…Associated with this growing membership is a subtle shift in the Antarctic Treaty Parties' motivations to participate in the ATS. The original 12 signatories and states acceding in the first two decades after the birth of the regime were largely driven by a perceived geopolitical need to prevent others from gaining strategic advantages from the Antarctic (Bulkeley, 2010) and managed the Antarctic through cooperation on scientific research, while states joining the ATS over the last three decades have been more focused on the resource potential the Antarctic holds (Dodds, 2006;Dodds & Collis, 2017). This can be seen in the significant growth, for example, in membership of the Antarctic Treaty during the 1970s and 1980s, when resource management discussions (fishing and minerals) were a priority issue (Fig.…”

American Cows in Antarctica: Richard Byrd's polar dairy as symbolic settler colonialism

“…Recently, however, this has begun to change, with Dodds identifying an "emerging engagement" with Antarctica by scholars who recognize that its unique history does not render it immune to "colonialism and associated practices such as mapping, surveying, and the subjugation of territory and non-human populations." 11 With Antarctica housing neither indigenous people nor settlers in the traditional sense, these critical efforts tend to focus on spatiality. Christy Collis, for example, examines both the early expedition hut and the contemporary scientific base as colonial spaces, 12 and Adrian…”

South Africa, Antarctica, and the ATS: An Unrealized Foreign Policy Leadership Opportunity

“…Notwithstanding this, the Treaty has also been criticised for shortcomings of exclusivity in membership, limited and unrepresentative governance arrangements, its neo-colonial character, institutional stasis, and laggardly responses to urgent policy issues (Dodds 2006;Hemmings 2007;Elzinga 2013;Verbitsky 2013). The criticisms made by developing states in the UN in the 1980s about the Antarctic Treaty as a club for privileged, western states have also been reiterated in this century, a clear signal that global south states still perceive themselves as having a lesser status and voice in Antarctic governance arrangements compared to those of the global north (Brady 2012, pp.451-452).…”

“…This offers a window of opportunity for South Africa to step into the breach, promote Treaty-consistent, environmentally protective regulation of bio-prospecting, a global south-supportive pathway for benefit-sharing and, in the process, operationalize and achieve a number of its foreign policy objectives. The caveat about support for democratization also ignores the significance of the symbolism inherent in South Africa challenging the governance architecture of a treaty that has been characterised as colonial-imperial (Dodds 2006;Scott 2011;Chaturvedi 2012), and pushing for reforms that would open the treaty up to a more diverse, globally representative membership and their perspectives. There is political capital among the global south to be gained for South Africa from such actions, particularly in coordination with efforts to recruit more developing states (both regionally and internationally) to the Antarctic Treaty.…”