Women in the Arctic: Gendering Coloniality in Travel Narratives from the Far North, 1907-1930

A Woman in the Far North:

“…19 In comparison, Silke Reeploeg extends a female engagement with the Arctic to a settler and colonial discourse, recognising the 'participatory nature of women's experiences in the imperial/colonial project.' 20 Despite transgressing social and cultural boundaries, white women recontextualise this overwhelmingly male narrative.…”

Gendering arctic memory: Understanding the legacy of Josephine Diebitsch-Peary

“…Noting the many ways in which difficult collective pasts are remembered, they also suggested that the study of gendered memories lacks a focus on affect (Schwab, 2010) as an important factor in the transmission of traumatic, transgenerational memories. While a detailed study of affect goes beyond the primary purpose of this article, it is hoped that an Arctic perspective on this growing list of ‘new stories’ will highlight gendered memory cultures as constituting difficult, necessarily affective, collective pasts that are associated with coloniality – the coloniality of memory (López-Calvo, 2016; Reeploeg, 2019). To do this, the article not only examines the role of colonial archives in the gendering of Arctic memory, but also the extent to which these memories constitute and transmit ‘the darker side of modernity’ (Mignolo, 2011).…”

“…Arctic expeditions, particularly those led by Robert Peary and others trained in the military or naval traditions, produced a homogenised, ‘hypermasculine region’ (Lewander, 2009: 91) with a scientific and colonial history that created solid patterns of homosocial environments (Lyle, 2001: 126). As a transnational region, the Arctic therefore remains a cultural-historical space (Körber et al, 2017; Reeploeg, 2019; Stuhl, 2016) where ‘exaggerated models of masculinity prevalent in Anglo-American societies’ are performed (Lyle, 2001: 125). The historical peak for this ‘culture of polar masculinity’ (Lyle, 2001: 125–126) runs parallel to the ‘heroic’ age of Arctic exploration from 1818 onwards.…”

“…Gendered memorialization practices, both inside and outside the archive, clearly form part of the creation and transmission of Arctic memory cultures (Reeploeg, 2019). Josephine Diebitsch-Peary’s legacy therefore represents one of many examples of the difficult collective pasts associated with Arctic memory cultures, as her removal also erases any references to the highly gendered, racial and sexual aspects of Arctic exploration itself.…”

Fotografier i Emilie Demant Hatts bok Med lapperne i højfjeldet :

“…Ifølge Reeploeg avslører Demant Hatts biografiske litteratur nemlig mange aspekter av kolonial ideologi. 23 Dette er en legitim kritikk som kanskje kan rettes mot alle reisende, det de skrev og fotograferte, men det er som sagt også mulig å ha flere perspektiver og å se forbi de koloniale «overflatene» til både tekster og fotografier.…”