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This chapter uses the specific case of Antarctica to think more broadly about how the treatment of animals can reveal colonial attitudes and logics, but also whether, in the absence of an Indigenous human population, animals have been (or can be) mobilised as subjects of human domination in a manner with parallels to colonialism. After a discussion of the relationships among imperialism, colonialism and capitalism, the chapter asks what wider structures facilitated the exploitation of animals by visitors to Antarctica, and contrasts the view of animals as objects for exploitation with the occasional invocation of penguins as Antarctic ‘citizens’. The chapter considers Greenpeace’s use of penguins in its 1980s campaigns for an Antarctic World Park as an example of how animals could be mobilised as representatives of the Antarctic environment, which proved an effective tactic even if it raised questions about who spoke for Antarctica and its animals. The chapter concludes that while it is problematic to cast Antarctic animals as colonial subjects, the underlying logics and attitudes of colonialism can be regarded as having potentially shaped actions in Antarctica towards animals.
This chapter discusses the USSR’s activities in Antarctica as a continuation of the traditions of Russian/Soviet continental colonialism, particularly of the practices of exploring the far north. It shows how transfer of people, institutions, technologies and discourses from the Arctic to the Antarctic created an interpolar space of Soviet colonialism. On the other hand, the author examines the representations of the Soviet Antarctic programme within the context of the anti-colonial discourse of the Cold War period. Attention is drawn to the USSR’s particular focus on the mineral resources of the icy continent as a manifestation of its colonialist intentions. The chapter examines both the reflection of Antarctica in the resource imagination of the Soviet era and the history of specific research programmes for geological exploration of the continent and its shelf in the second half of the twentieth century. It employs the concept of extractive socialism to highlight the specificity of the Soviet response to resource challenges of the 1970s.
The chapter addresses the question of whether colonialism can be a useful concept to analyse the relationship of Argentina and Chile with Antarctica. To do so, it presents a historical analysis based on the perspective of international practices, examining territorial, scientific and economic approaches to Antarctica. The first section presents the concept of colonialism and relates it to the phenomena of imperialism and nationalism, raising some important analytical questions. The second section presents both countries’ territorial approach to Antarctica, considering these to be distinct from colonialist approaches. The third section contrasts the early scientific projects of Argentina and Chile with those of European powers during the heroic age of Antarctic expeditions, revealing some important differences. The fourth section explores the way in which both countries approached economic activities in the region as a means to ensure sovereignty in the face of what they regarded as imperialist ambitions, differentiating those approaches from the typical extractive approaches of European powers. The final section presents the chapter’s general conclusions, indicating that Argentina and Chile’s approaches should not be subsumed into Eurocentric concepts and perspectives, and that colonialism is not a useful concept to assess both countries’ attitudes toward Antarctica.
This chapter provides evidence of colonialism in Antarctica through the enacting of different types of borders. Using a postcolonial geographical analysis, it unpacks how these borders manifest and influence human behaviour across space, identity/hybridity and knowledge. The analysis reveals multiple Antarctic spaces and identities, and a distinct gatekeeping of knowledge. These all contain a paradox: the effects of colonial borders linger within Antarctic Treaty System rules and rule-making, separating decision-makers from each other and from Antarctica. At the same time, humans going to Antarctica connect with the collective interest of Antarctica by performing these very rules. The chapter shows how the five main gateways to Antarctica – Hobart, Christchurch, Punta Arenas, Ushuaia and Capetown – are spaces where the enacting of this paradox can be seen most clearly. Gateways are bordering spaces where Gateway states can exert influence upon Antarctic governance; they are also transition spaces to Antarctica via collective bordering practices. The new term extracolonialism is coined to focus on the coexistence of these two dynamics and the different ways in which they are bordered. The chapter argues that the term does two things. First, it acknowledges the legacies of the colonial past instead of avoiding them, particularly in relation to borders; second, it incorporates the sense of performative power of action in new collective spaces where humans work in relationship with Antarctica as nature rather than objectifying it.
This is the first major exploration of how – and if – colonialism can be a useful concept in analysing Antarctica, and whether Antarctica can help reveal the analytical limits of colonialism as a concept. It is a contribution to the wider project of critical Antarctic studies, which challenges Antarctic exceptionalism and argues that Antarctica has always been integrated within global political and economic structures. In the introduction the editors lay out the justification for the book and the questions to be examined, followed by 12 substantive chapters. The first set of chapters focuses on case studies from Latin America, France, the USSR, eastern Europe and China, with analytical approaches from heritage studies, political philosophy, international relations and history. The second set takes up thematic questions related to animals and colonialism, bordering and frontiers, capitalism, field science practices and identities, religion, political domination, and knowledge practices. Finally, a postscript takes a more reflective approach to the relationship between colonialism and Antarctica and places it within the larger context of ongoing scholarly discussions. Overall the book provides an argument for the relevance of colonialism for thinking about Antarctica, and vice versa, and a set of perspectives on both the advantages and the potential limitations of such approaches.
A focus on religion can offer a helpful perspective for thinking about colonialism in Antarctica. Using case studies from Britain, Argentina, Chile and the United States, this chapter explores the relationship between colonialism and religion in the twentieth-century history of Antarctica. Although Antarctica is in many ways quite different from examples of the close relationship that colonialism and religion have had in many other parts of the world, the chapter argues that religion has nonetheless supported colonial practices in Antarctica. Religion has provided a motivation for colonial engagement with Antarctica, has supported colonial claims to the continent and has played a role in domesticating Antarctic space as part of the process of settler colonialism. Reflecting the inherent imprecision of the words ‘colonialism’ and ‘imperialism’ in Antarctic history, a study of religion can help to demonstrate the colonial roots of Antarctic activities, even when the protagonists themselves may not have thought of themselves as involved in a colonial enterprise. Ultimately, however, it is science and not religion that has done most to support colonialism in Antarctica, meaning that the religious history of the continent has frequently been overlooked.
The book’s conclusions are briefly presented in the last chapter. Given that each chapter offers its own concluding reflections, this chapter returns to the question of urban comparison within African peripheries and considers the value of comparison for advancing understanding in these complex urban spaces. It briefly addresses the book’s contribution to core literatures detailed here at the start of this chapter, but primarily it returns to our conceptual framework and our five logics of African urban peripheries to consider their value and limitations. Finally, the chapter considers the policy implications, very generally, of some of the arguments and evidence presented in this text.
This chapter develops the idea of the origins and procedures of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) as colonial by relying on republican political thought and, more specifically, on the concept of domination. Thus, the chapter provides a valuable political-philosophical perspective on a discourse in the Antarctic humanities regarding the unfairness and injustice of the ATS. Focusing on domination helps to highlight the exact wrong of colonialism that is present in Antarctic governance, i.e. a group of states denying participation in decision-making about Antarctica to the rest of the world. This chapter discusses domination during the three stages of ATS’s development: the territorial claims, the negotiations of the Antarctic Treaty and the institutionalisation that followed. First, the problematic origins of the ATS are analysed by looking at the power imbalance present during territorial acquisition. Next, the chapter discusses the negotiations, which reflected existing hierarchies in the international arena. Then, it explains how domination was solidified through institutionalisation, which established the two-tier system that protects the interests of the original 12 signatories to the Antarctic Treaty to this day. The chapter concludes with republican strategies to minimise domination, and their applicability to the ATS. The chapter argues that the ATS’s transition away from domination and toward a postcolonial Antarctic future requires that decision-making be open to all states.
This chapter uses data from key informant interviews and resident diaries and interviews to examine the varied governance structures shaping the peripheries in both South Africa and Ethiopia. It opens with a discussion of key conceptual framings relevant to understanding governance trends in urban peripheries and moves to review the multiscalar institutional bodies, administrative structures, local committees and key figures including ward leaders and ‘strongmen’ operating in, and responsible for, the peripheral spaces in city-regions. Within this review the chapter offers brief reflections on hybridity, the limitations of the state and the role of the private sector shaping decision-making. It turns to an analysis of borders and boundaries as central to particular governance contestations and analyses state–citizen relations using the insights drawn from the book’s overarching ‘lived experiences’ approach. Throughout the chapter, conceptualisations of the periphery, developed in the Introduction, are drawn on to analyse particular governance arrangements and practices, including new structures within vanguard peripheries, ‘transitioning peripheries’ possessing hybrid governance structures and auto-constructed peripheries where informalised mechanisms of leadership are evident, alongside weakened state structures which are obligated to serve ‘inherited peripheries’.
This chapter locates diverse forms of housing found in seven South African case study sites on the urban edges of Gauteng and eThekwini relative to a historical view of urban policy. It contextualises the origins and contemporary dynamics of inherited as well as more recent peripheral settlements. Experiences and perceptions from residents’ interviews and diaries explain their links to these areas and include expressions of hope and optimism as well as dejection with life there. The long shadow of apartheid colours but does not define people’s continued occupation of areas that were intentionally dislocated from urban centralities, while post-apartheid state housing, often peripherally located, surfaces complex relationships with speculative development and economic activity or its absence. The chapter discusses also the differing roles played by informal settlements and other forms of auto-construction in our study sites. The lens of peripheral logics illuminates people’s housing experiences and motivations, the pull of state and other housing-related investment, sometimes in contradictory ways, and the dynamism as well as sedimentation in this housing landscape.