The relationship between the Antarctic and colonialism presents academics with a fascinating case. The absence of Indigenous population questions the very applicability of the concept to the Antarctic. Nonetheless, a broader understanding of colonialism from a critical perspective leads us to approach the exploration of Antarctica as part of the wider global phenomenon of colonialism and the expansion of capitalism.¹ That changes our perspective on how to analyse and interpret the different nations’ approaches to the white continent.

The main problem is presented by the fact that traditional approaches to Antarctic colonialism are imbued with western colonialist ideology that have considered certain colonial concepts, practices and relationships as natural, disregarding other approaches. The disregard with which Latin American involvement in Antarctica has been treated in the mainstream literature has been pointed out by Latin American authors, and recently by academics from Europe and the USA.² However, such an endeavour is far from being a straightforward and simple process and includes calling into question the very conceptual framework we use for analysing social reality.

Shirley Scott has pointed out the need to discriminate the distinct approach that different nations applied to their actions in the Antarctic.³ Differentiating three waves of Antarctic imperialism, Scott calls to our attention the fact that the ‘[a]‌pplication of a post-colonial lens to the international political history of Antarctica facilitates identification of patterns of domination and resistance’.⁴ That perspective is shared by Klaus J. Dodds and Christy Collis, but without differentiating the different forms of relationship with Antarctica, equating all claims to some form of colonialism.⁵ Nicoletta Brazelli applies a similar interpretation, considering that all the Antarctic Treaty signatories were acting in a colonialist manner by deciding on behalf of humankind, but acknowledging the different perspectives opened up in southern nations by postcolonial approaches.⁶

The challenge, therefore, is to identify the diversity of approaches to Antarctica, including the need to overcome the view of South American nations as passive witnesses, avoiding the use of stereotypical Eurocentric frameworks and interpreting those practices on their own terms.⁷ Scott’s analysis certainly constitutes a first step in that direction by questioning and distinguishing the different principles of territorial expansion that ruled the different nations. Following that same path, I propose here to adopt an analysis of Argentina and Chile’s actions in Antarctica, following a postcolonial analysis based on the international practice perspective.⁸ Based on the idea of practices as relative stable patterns of socially meaningful actions, this perspective adds to the mere identification of external manifestations of doing (behaviour) and the intentional and intersubjective meaning (action) of the patterned character of practices.⁹ It situates them in a field of struggle for recognition and significations both for actors and for practices themselves, and allows us to contest the naturalisation of meanings and structured situations typical of Eurocentric views, locating in the actors themselves the attribution of meanings and content to their actions. While in previous works I have analysed the building of an Antarctic identity in Argentina and Chile, my objective here is to provide an analysis of how Argentina and Chile’s practices regarding Antarctica weigh against colonialist practices and how they fit within global dynamics.¹⁰

The international practice perspective provides a framework within which the actions of both countries can be interpreted in the wider scope of colonialist relations of domination and control, related to the legitimation of actors and practices and their encounter as a field in which power relations are expressed. I therefore analyse in what capacity Argentina and Chile were acknowledged by their Antarctic counterparts, and how their practices expressed a colonial relationship or a resistance to it.

The chapter consists of five parts. The first analyses the conceptual puzzle of defining colonialism, its link with imperialism, and the difference from nationalism and its hybrid character in postcolonial countries. The second considers the territorial dimension, how it relates to the phenomenon of colonialism, and how we can interpret Argentina and Chile’s Antarctic involvement. The third part examines the approaches that Argentina and Chile have to Antarctic science, and how they differ from those of the European countries and the USA. The fourth looks into the economic exploitation of Antarctica, and how Argentina and Chile dealt with economic prospects and activities in the region. The final part presents the discussion and general conclusions.

The conceptual puzzle: Colonialism, imperialism and nationalism

Colonialism is a contested concept. It can be seen as a socio-economic practice, or as a complex device designed to establish political, cultural, social and economic domination of other peoples. The former, when taken in isolation, deprives the concept of its historical character and sociological significance, considering merely the settlement in new lands; maintaining a connection with a parent state; avoiding any reference to the encounter of peoples, conquest and domination.¹¹ Such a cleansed concept has the advantage of including practices across time and space, being applicable to any circumstances. However, it does not constitute an ideal type from a sociological perspective, lacking heuristic utility and turning the word into a sterile concept.¹²

On the other hand, from a sociological and historical viewpoint, colonialism can be interpreted as a set of practices through which territorial expansion aimed at economic exploitation is undertaken, imbued with a sense of superiority, irrespective of whether the targeted lands are inhabited or considered by other peoples as their domains. This requires that any people who could inhabit that territory or claim any bond with it be considered inferior, and that the incorporated territory be placed in a subordinated hierarchy that establishes a structural relationship of dependence. In other words, colonialism requires a distinction between homeland and colony and their respective populations, in which only the former is considered autonomous.

Historically, that expansion took the form of practices of exploration, conquest and domination, often conceived as a civilising quest over other peoples. It included a wide range of practices such as ‘trade, settlement, plunder, negotiation, warfare, genocide, and enslavement’, justified by an alleged superiority over the colonised.¹³ While, analytically, colonialism and settler colonialism are distinct formations, it is important to highlight that both concepts located domination and control over other peoples at the centre, where the colonising force considered itself superior to the colonised.¹⁴ This renders the idea of colonialism or settler colonialism without the colonised an empty concept, and calls one to look at the phenomenon of colonialism as an international practice in which representations of who are legitimate actors and which are legitimate practices are considered.¹⁵

Additionally, modern European colonialism added important changes to the social and economic structures of the colonies, establishing a circuit of capital, people and natural resources between the colonised and the colonising countries.¹⁶ In this regard, it was a key factor in the expansion of European capitalism, and structured the geographically unequal distribution of wealth that persists today. Modern European colonialism projected a system of political domination, social control and economic exploitation with global scope and expressed international practices that imposed European ways as the universal expression of civilisation and modernity.¹⁷

This leads us to the concept of imperialism, which is different from colonialism but also closely related. While some authors identify them as parts of the same phenomenon, I find it more appropriate to distinguish between colonialism and imperialism.¹⁸ While colonialism is the practice of political, social and economic oppression linked to the territorial control of the land and the establishment of an asymmetrical and subordinated relationship, imperialism is a policy oriented to the political control outside the homeland territory, aimed at ensuring a hegemonic position and advancing interests beyond a state’s national borders, irrespective of the relationship established with the oppressed peoples. This could take the form of formal empires or the more recent forms of neoimperialism, based on the deployment of military forces around the world and the use of non-military forms of oppression.¹⁹

In this light, colonialism is usually implemented as a means to imperialism, but it is only one of the options available for the centre of power to extend its political control. In other words, while colonialism is almost unequivocally related to imperialism, the latter could adopt other forms, including non-territorial methods of domination and control.

The form of colonialism adopted by modern European imperialism was universalist, as it considered only European forms to be valid, modern and civilised, and presumed that they needed to be imposed upon the colonised. This facet of colonialism was expressed through the idea of common principles that ruled the relationships between ‘civilised’ nations, but which excepted all other peoples and nations. In this regard, it is interesting to note that European colonialism acknowledged a similar status for the other European powers, while the rest of the world remained a place to be colonised and, therefore, civilised.

Such neglect of other cultures and social institutions translated into certain relationships with territory and with Indigenous populations. The idea of a ‘discovery’ of the Americas, an already populated continent; the arbitrary division of the territory following colonialist interests; and the conception of the colonisation process as a ‘conquest’ are examples of the territorial practices that disregarded any pre-existent right or socio-political and territorial order. The subordinated relationship between the metropolis and the colony reinforced that character and denied autonomy to the local communities – either Indigenous or settlers – subjected to the political and economic needs of the centre of political control.

In the cultural realm, the universalist character of modern European colonialism was articulated by denying any value to Indigenous knowledge and culture, making it invisible. However, this universalist character collided with the colonialist relationship, based on the subordinated distinction between the metropolis and the colony, the colonisers and the colonised. The ‘success’ of the modernising project led to demands for autonomy and an egalitarian status in the colonies – even when not necessarily between the settlers’ groups and Indigenous communities.²⁰ This resulted in nationalist movements of independence that looked to refound the state under the idea of the ‘nation’ in its modern, territorial form. In this process, they adopted an anti-colonialist ethos, notwithstanding that they mirrored several characteristics of their former metropolis, and many times fostered the same universalist discourse to advance effective territorial control.

The combination between local assertiveness; an anti-colonialist impetus; and the adoption of forms, institutions and practices derived from the former colonisers established what has been called the hybrid character of postcolonial nations.²¹ The territorial constitution of such nations followed the divisions established by the colonisation process and imported many European social, political and administrative institutional forms. Furthermore, the way in which many of those constituted nations treated the Indigenous populations and their culture did not differ significantly from colonialist ways, something that has been covered by settler colonialism theory. However, the hybrid character differed from colonialist forms in that it sought to abolish the typical colonialist relationships of subjugation, being favourable to the implementation of federal and republican forms. Furthermore, identities and culture typically amalgamated imported ideas and customs with those inherited from the Indigenous populations, as well as others that were developed by the ‘criollos’. Such a process was not without violence, but it was the need to differentiate from the former metropolis, adopting some local identity while remaining modern, that constituted the hybrid character of these nation-state formations. As works on settler colonialism have highlighted, this process denied the Indigenous culture as such by incorporating some of its traits into the national culture. However, it is precisely this process, looking to incorporate individuals and territories into the nation, that makes it different from colonialism.

The process of independence and the promotion of nationalism did not therefore abolish the universalist claim of the modernist project, but foregrounded resistance to the differentiation characteristic of the colonial relationship. The nationalism that arose from the independence process was not necessarily less racist, more humanitarian or respectful of Indigenous cultures, but consisted of an expressive rearrangement of the political relationships of subordination and control among the different geographical regions, and included the adaptation of the colonialist modernising project to domestic characteristics, interests and hybrid cultures. In particular, nationalism differed from colonialism in that territoriality did not suppose a hierarchical relationship, at least formally. On the other hand, in the economic realm, the already established global relationships of dependency were not fundamentally altered – with the notable exception of the USA – relegating the new independent nations to a similarly subordinated economic position. And culturally, national identity was constructed through the amalgamation of modernist western values and traditional ones, underpinned by a strong anti-colonialist ethos.²²

Thus, in the following, I argue that the approaches of Argentina and Chile to Antarctic territoriality, scientific research and economic activities resulting from their nationalism are distinct from the practices implemented by colonialist powers. While some of those practices have similar external manifestations, a more thorough analysis demonstrates that their determinants and expressions are distinct from colonial practices and should be interpreted accordingly. The hybrid character of Latin American nationalism certainly made it coincide with colonialist powers in references to sovereignty, national interests and the value of science, but also established a particular perspective that cannot be subsumed into a Eurocentric analysis.

Argentina and Chile’s approaches to Antarctic territoriality

Territoriality is a basic constitutive element of the modern nation-state, in the sense that the definition of a nation’s borders – the geographic space that it claims for itself – establishes the limits of its authority and sovereignty.²³ The territoriality linked to the colony is different from that aroused by the sense of the fatherland – or national territory – as the colonies are integrated as appendices to the nation in a subordinated role. In this regard, the colonialist territoriality is typically expansionist and linked to a push for conquest and domination, while territoriality linked to the idea of national territory is integrative and linked to a historical identity.

Other forms of spatiality and territoriality are possible, but these two hold special interest as they distinguish Argentina and Chile’s territoriality from European colonialist practice. In Scott’s words, ‘Chile and Argentina perceived their territory in Antarctica as integral to their nation’, distinguishing it from the colonialist territoriality that the European powers displayed in Antarctica.²⁴

First, it is important to understand that Argentina and Chile’s territoriality arose from struggles for independence and subsequent civil and regional wars. Following the independence process, the region was subject to struggles between forces of integration and division at the internal level, bordering disputes at the regional level, and resistance to colonialist practices from European powers – such as the British in the Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands. The hybrid character of the nascent nations with its modernist project was expressed through efforts to control the greatest extension of land possible, mirroring the balance-of-power logic of European powers.²⁵ The extension of state control through its military and administrative presence was essential to extending the frontiers of primary production, thus fulfilling their inclusion within the circuits of global capitalism.

This advancement included the displacement, domination and decimation of Indigenous populations, paralleling European colonial practices. However, the way in which this territory was integrated into the national realm was fundamentally different.²⁶ This is to say not that such forms were more humane but that the territorial integration was substantially different and did not establish a colonial relationship. Behind those forces pushing for territorial control was an ideology that considered these territories part of the nation and a rightful inheritance from their Hispanic colonial past. In this process a national territorial conscience was constructed, usually accompanied by a sense of territorial loss.²⁷ Furthermore, these practices were a consequence of European imperialism, as they responded to demands for raw materials on the part of the centres of industrial production in Europe and were considered a way to secure territory and natural resources deemed necessary to ensure their security in the face of imperialist threats.²⁸

During the 1800s, European powers and the USA participated in a series of incidents that Latin American countries regarded as direct attacks on their territorial integrity and sovereignty. Among them, the taking by force of the Malvinas /Falklands in 1833, and the invasion by Spain of the Chincha Islands in 1864, are exemplary.²⁹ Other conflicts, such as that over the intent to install a monarchy in Ecuador, and diplomatic strains resulting from abuses and challenges to the Latin American nations’ jurisdiction over European citizens within their territory, cemented a sense of rejection of European colonial imperialism.³⁰

The territoriality of Argentina and Chile interpreted their territory as extending as far as the South Pole, based on the idea of inheritance of the concession made by the papal bulls to Spain in 1493.³¹ These inherited rights were coupled with the idea of proximity, geographical influence, contiguity, and the presence through economic activities undertaken by nationals and residents of both countries since the nineteenth century. From early on, the words and actions of Argentinians and Chileans expressed the idea of the Antarctic as juridically, naturally and historically bonded with their territories.

Early territorial interest in the region was articulated in the form of planned geographic and scientific expeditions, aid provided to other nations’ explorers and the issue of regulations over activities to be undertaken in the southern regions. The idea of Antarctica as naturally bonded with the South American continent was manifest in the different expeditions proposed even before the Sixth International Geographical Congress’s 1895 call to explore the Antarctic.³² Such a bond was also manifest in the language of some European explorers such as Giacomo Bove and Otto Nordenskjöld, who tried to interest Argentina and Chile in the exploration of the region.³³

The use of the southern ports by European expeditions raised the region’s prominence in the awareness of the South American public and provided a loose sense of belonging through the provision of aid by means of products, services, meteorological information and a few notable rescues.³⁴ As part of the territorial imagination connecting South America with the southern regions, the idea of an American Antarctica started to arise as early as the late nineteenth century, becoming part of the public imagination of Argentina and Chile and acquiring a key role in the 1940s in the context of increasing tensions with the British.³⁵

However, the nationalism applied to Antarctica limited their capacity to adopt a regional front.³⁶ In 1940, a US proposal to claim an Antarctic sector on behalf of all American republics was rejected, and Chile issued a decree defining the limits of its Antarctic sector, causing tensions with Argentina.³⁷ This demonstrated that American Antarctica was less a shared space than an idea that allowed opposition to the pretensions of extracontinental powers.³⁸ This notwithstanding, both countries reached some limited understanding in 1941, 1947 and 1948, and looked for the support of other Latin American countries in Pan American forums. They succeeded in including the American Antarctic sector within the region of the strategic defence of the InterAmerican Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR, also known as the Rio Pact) in 1947. With time, both countries adopted the concept of South American Antarctica, which excluded the USA.³⁹

Symbolic and cultural aspects also expressed a territoriality linked to nationalist practices that differed from colonialism. Argentina justified the 1904 acquisition of the Scottish explorer William Speirs Bruce’s observatory on Laurie Island as a project ‘related to the establishment of new magnetic and meteorological stations in the Southern Seas of the Republic’.⁴⁰ The flying of the Argentine flag at the station and the designation of a postmaster from such an early date symbolically connected the mainland with Antarctica, instead of constituting an episodic ‘heroic’ event. As the conflict over Antarctica was intensifying during the 1940s, Argentina and Chile looked to foster greater public awareness of Antarctica and promoted the inclusion of their respective Antarctic sectors on all maps of the national territory, a practice that continues today.⁴¹ Nationalist movements in Argentina and Chile also promoted the inclusion of content related to Antarctica and their national rights within educational curricula. This was accompanied by public declarations and formal acts in the region with the usual expressions of national belonging, added to the installation of assistance to navigation and the establishment of communication structures, including permanent radio stations and post offices. Probably the most symbolic action was the establishment of families in Antarctica by Argentina in 1978 and by Chile in 1984, for periods of up to two years. Despite being commonly interpreted as colonialist practices, these settlements lacked the characteristics of the colonial relationship, being a manifestation of the presence of the state in what was considered a national territory, and not a proper colonialist practice, which would need to be aimed at economic extraction.⁴²

Finally, the two South American nations approached the Antarctic territorially in the light of concerns about possible British imperialist actions. Considering the precedent of the Malvinas/Falklands and the presence of British interests in Patagonia at the beginning of the twentieth century, both nations feared a possible movement from the British, and looked for affirmative actions and to constitute a common front. The subsequent issue of Letters Patent by the British in 1908, establishing the Falkland Islands Dependencies, structured a confrontation between the approach of the two South American countries to Antarctica and the colonialist project of the British, which evolved up until the signing of the Antarctic Treaty.⁴³

After this, a differential perception of the rights to the region was structured between the southern nations and the European powers. The latter built their positions on the basis of the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, which divided Africa among the European powers, while Argentina and Chile remained adamant regarding their privileged rights within, and their connection to, the region. European disregard of both countries’ interests in communications, negotiations and analysis of the territorial situation in Antarctica prevented any thought of the South American states’ being acknowledged as equals by Europe.⁴⁴ For Argentina and Chile, such negligence was another expression of colonial imperialism, expressed through pretensions to lands so distant from their homelands, which contrasted their own proximity and identity. This perception also expressed their resistance to the idea of the ‘hero/conquistador’, typical of the colonialist narrative, which was incarnated in the way the history of Antarctica was expressed in colonialist countries.⁴⁵

At the same time, Argentina and Chile were resistant to the colonialist imprint that scientific activity in Antarctica took after the end of the first wave of international collaborative exploration during the first decade of the twentieth century, approaching Antarctic research in a very different manner.

Argentina and Chile’s approaches to Antarctic research

Argentina and Chile’s approaches to Antarctic research considered western science the highest expression of knowledge, overlooking the colonialist facet with which scientific enterprise is usually imbued. Thus, their original approach to scientific activities in Antarctica appealed to the western collaborative civilising spirit. Expressions of the universal value of science were common, and both countries offered unconditioned collaboration to foreign expeditions heading south just in exchange for public acknowledgement. However, their approach to Antarctic scientific research in projects of their own making was notably different.

In general, western science was permeated with important colonialist elements, presented as superior and represented in a triumphalist form that neglected their inheritance from other cultures and the participation of the local population and informants in the production of knowledge.⁴⁶ Moreover, western scientific practice itself presented a dynamic that resembled the colonialist circuit of peoples and resources, with a similar geographical asymmetry.

In Antarctica, this has been translated into neglecting the southern nations’ collaboration in early Antarctic exploration, their being portrayed as little more than places of passage. Not only have their collaborations in other nations’ scientific enterprises been ignored, but their own scientific activities have commonly been underestimated. Since early Antarctic exploration, doubts about methodological handling and scientific rigour were common in the European treatment of data and findings coming from Argentina and Chile, in a clear colonialist appreciation of those countries’ scientific skills.⁴⁷

But the most significant differential trait of the approaches of both countries to Antarctic science is the continuous character that their scientific effort acquired, in contrast with the event-based and temporal character of almost all colonialist exploratory endeavours. Antarctic expeditions by European powers were characterised by the colonialist practices of discovery and possession, with geographical surveying playing a central role because of the possibilities it opened for territorial claims. While science played a relevant part in many expeditions, geographical exploration ended up fuelling much Antarctic endeavour during the early twentieth century.

In contrast, Argentina and Chile devised their Antarctic plans as permanent projects, despite the failure of some to materialise and their having a very limited presence in the area up until the 1940s, with the notable exceptions of the Argentine Laurie Island and South Georgia stations. Plans for a series of meteorological stations were proposed by the Instituto Geográfico Argentino in the 1880s but insufficient resources were available. A similar project arose in 1905, intended to complement the recently built Laurie Island station with the planned South Georgia station and a third one on Wandel Island, but this last failed to be installed.⁴⁸ For its part, in Chile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Huneeus, also proposed an Antarctic expedition to install a permanent meteorological station in 1906, but the country was struck by a huge earthquake in Valparaíso, forcing it to concentrate its resources on the emergency and cancel all Antarctic plans.⁴⁹

Although both countries eventually built their own Antarctic myths around some individuals and their feats – José María Sobral and Julián Irízar in Argentina and Luis Pardo Villalón in Chile – their actions in Antarctica were not inspired by a desire for fame and fortune as was the case with many European explorers. Most of the early European expeditions were private initiatives – except for the German expeditions – with some form of public funding, donations and financing through profits coming from books and other forms of publicity. This differed significantly from the official Argentinian expeditions since 1904, and from the actions taken in support of expeditions in distress. Those actions were oriented to exert a loose form of administration and assistance over the area, comparable in a sense with the British establishment of the Discovery Investigations, though these were in order to inform the creation of a regulatory framework that could ensure the sustainable exploitation of whales under British colonial authority.⁵⁰

Such an approach was also present in cultural objects. As Pablo Fontana has argued, the ‘heroic’ – i.e. European and US – record of exploration was based on a linear account in which the expedition arrives, explores, overcomes some insurmountable difficulty and returns home.⁵¹ On the other hand, the Argentine film about Laurie Island station, Entre los hielos de las islas Orcadas (Within the Frozen Lands of the South Orkneys), presented a circular story in which the beginning and the end connect, establishing a permanent cycle. This narrative not only expressed the permanent character of the Argentine presence, but also diluted the significance of the ‘heroic’ individual facet of exploration as a national commitment. While this cyclical character was also present in the scientific work undertaken through the Discovery Investigations at sea, it was not prevalent in the cultural imagination in the same way as the British involvement in the Antarctic.

Only in 1944, with the British Operation Tabarin, intended to undermine the Argentine position in the area, did European Antarctic science establish permanent land stations. By this time, any illusions held by Argentina and Chile about the cosmopolitan nature of the European scientific involvement in Antarctica had evaporated. Realising the political consequences of Europe’s presence on the continent, both countries expressed their concerns over the political effects of scientific activities.⁵²

The 1948 proposal by Chile for a status quo agreement regarding activities in Antarctica was aimed at promoting scientific international collaboration without compromising its national stake in the area.⁵³ It proposed a five-year moratorium during which activities would not be considered for the purposes of making claims, exchange of information would be facilitated, and taxes or other charges in the area would be exempted. The same view informed the Chilean resolve to include a resolution at the Antarctic Conferences of the Special Committee for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) that no scientific activity would alter the political status quo.⁵⁴ The provision ended up being incorporated into Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty, signed on 1 December 1959, constituting one of the political pillars of the agreement.⁵⁵

After a first period of relative innocence regarding Antarctic science, therefore, Argentina and Chile started to be sceptical of its ‘neutral’ character. Despite being favourable, in general, to international collaboration in scientific research, this collaboration has been allowed as a consequence of the guarantees provided by the status quo agreement of the IGY and the Antarctic Treaty, and is still strongly tied to it. Such distrust was also motivated by their misgivings that research could inform economic exploitation and establish some form of hierarchy that might reproduce the economic colonialism of the past, described in the next section.

Argentina and Chile’s approaches to Antarctic economic exploitation

The economic prospects of Antarctica have played a role in Argentina and Chile’s relationship with it. However, internal conflicts, border disputes, lack of territorial control and scarcity of resources hindered any attempt systematically to develop, regulate and control economic activity in the region. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Chile and Argentina started to issue regulations extending to the southern parts of what they considered their territories.

For Argentina and Chile, the expansion of their administrative control and economic activities to the south was no more than a continuation of the movement of expansion of their economic frontiers that had been taking place since their integration into the global economy. Within this movement, effective presence and administration, economic interest and the affirmation of sovereignty were strongly linked. Distinct from typical colonialist economic practice, where political control and social violence are aimed mainly at extracting economic resources from the colonies, in the case of Latin America the expansion of economic activities in Antarctica had the advantage of fostering national presence with reduced costs, mainly aimed at developing those regions and reinforcing their territorial sovereignty.⁵⁶

However, the development of a profitable commercial activity attracted other actors. The establishment of the first permanent whaling station in South Georgia, the port of Grytviken, in 1904, was followed by others, and motivated the first conflicts of jurisdiction. The Compañía Argentina de Pesca S.A. had been established with the assistance of the Argentine government, which exempted the company’s products from import duties as the activities were coming from the national territory, while the British government in the Malvinas/Falklands claimed rights over those lands and demanded payment, using the presence of the warship HMS Sappho to guarantee the agreement with the company.⁵⁷ Instead of informing or negotiating with Argentina, the British government assumed a position that avoided controversy, considering its claims sufficient to establish a colonial relationship of subordination in South Georgia.

In contrast, the overlap between the ambitions of Argentina and Chile regarding the issue of permits evidenced the need to initiate negotiations, which – as we have seen – started in 1906 but reached no agreement. By this time, the British had come to see in Antarctica a possible source of resources to finance part of their colonial empire, resulting in the 1908 Letters Patent.⁵⁸ The whaling industry in Antarctica developed rapidly, associated with capital of diverse origin, but the British and Norwegians were dominant. Britain looked for a device that could allow it to control the colonial space and its main resource, the whales, creating the aforementioned Discovery Investigations programme.⁵⁹ What Adrian Howkins has described as the ‘environmental authority’, claimed by the British as a consequence of scientific data, was another expression of colonialism aimed at establishing a hierarchy that ensured the exploitation of resources in a profitable – and civilised – way.⁶⁰

The decline of whaling after the Second World War saw no equivalent economic interest taking its place. The prospect of mineral resource exploitation was always present, but it did not go any further than public discourse aimed at attaining public attention and, potentially, government funding. If anything, the IGY served to confirm that Antarctica was at least a few generations away from profitable mineral exploitation.⁶¹ Thus, the decline of whaling was also a decline of colonialist interest, opening the door for the political agreement that resulted in the Antarctic Treaty.

However, every time the issue of economic resources arose within the Antarctic regime, internal conflicts and external pressures surfaced. The dominant Argentine and Chilean position was to resist the new forms of economic domination and imperialism and resort to nationalism, being sceptical of the potential to establish a fair and equitable arrangement. This, added to their concerns over the potential environmental impacts of Antarctic economic activities across the American continent, led them to support a position favourable to environmental preservation. While the prospect of unforeseen mineral economic riches in Antarctica continues to be promoted to the public in both countries as a way to attract interest, that vision is linked not with colonialist practices but with images of national development, and is increasingly being replaced by the idea of environmental protection.

Conclusion

When considering Argentina and Chile’s approach to Antarctica it is necessary to avoid being misled by Eurocentric analysis. Although the actions and attitudes of both South American countries were in some cases similar in form to those of the European colonialist powers and the USA, a number of significant differences call into question the use of categories that are descriptive and specific for the European case.

To begin with, it is necessary to highlight the hybrid character of Argentina and Chile, in the sense that they are products of a process of independence in which the European westernised element continued to be regarded as superior. It is no surprise that the civilising appeal of science and exploration was relevant in the attitudes of both South American countries to Antarctica. However, it is also important to acknowledge the aspect of resistance to colonial imperialism imprinted in their nationalism. This was especially reinforced in the case of Argentina, since the former colony had resisted two British invasions of Buenos Aires, and protested when the British took the Malvinas/Falklands in 1833.

As Scott has established, moreover, it is important to distinguish between the South American tradition inherited from Spain and the British imperialist tradition. Whether the former was considered a legacy that was attained through bloody struggles against the oppressor, the latter was the outcome of a colonialist philosophy instilled by a sense of superiority that justified the use of coercive force. South America did not consider British practices a basis for rights, especially as they were based on an imperialist and colonialist ethos that they had resisted. At the same time, they rejected the disregard with which European powers treated the involvement of both nations in Antarctica, and generally avoided being included in the dynamics of colonialist practices on which the European powers based their positions.

Furthermore, the European powers saw in Antarctica a place for imperial expansion and colonisation, if not in the sense of conquest and domination over people then at least in terms of territorial annexation and extraction of economic benefits. In this regard, they saw in Antarctica not part of their national territory, but a faraway land that could be incorporated into their systems of political and economic control. In contrast, both South American countries considered the Antarctic part of their national territory from the very beginning of their involvement, joining the two countries through imaginary, cultural and physical links.

The relationship of Argentina and Chile with Antarctica can therefore be understood to present a territoriality that is not colonialist in nature or in its practices. While such territoriality includes values and representations taken from western European culture, it also presents particularities that make it improper to subsume it into the categories and representations designed for the analysis of European colonialism. The way the Antarctic was thought about, imagined and perceived in Argentina and Chile did not correspond with the subordinated hierarchy typical of the colonialist relationship, nor with the self-image of superiority that characterised European colonialism.

In terms of the role that both Latin American countries gave to Antarctic science, it is also important to stress that scientific endeavour had a very different character in those countries compared with the mainly private, often commercially motivated and temporally limited features of the European involvement in the region at the beginning of the twentieth century. Seeing in science an expression of national commitment and a means to provide assistance and effective administration of the area, Argentina and Chile aimed for a continuous presence, despite the availability of resources and the internal political landscape limiting the potential to achieving this.

Once the colonising project of European-US science became evident to the two countries, their reluctance to accept Antarctic scientific involvement as politically neutral was mobilised in order to obtain guarantees that scientific activity would not impact political status. This struggle with the colonialist function of Antarctic science finally led to the IGY resolution that there must be no sovereignty outcomes from the event’s activities, and helped to establish Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty, which constituted the basis for the political agreement that created the Antarctic regime.

Finally, while both nations saw in the Antarctic a region with economic potential, the way they approached commercial activities was mostly informed by their territorial and sovereignty concerns, rather than by any economic prospects. The regulation, tax burden and dependence typical of the colonialist relationship was what mediated the relationship between the European governments and economic activities in the Antarctic, while Argentina and Chile pursued neither a taxation policy, nor the establishment of a dependent relationship, but provided assistance and tax benefits to promote the consolidation of the nation’s presence in the region.

The issues covered above implies not that Argentina and Chile’s approaches to Antarctica are in any way better or ethically superior, but that they have distinctive characteristics that do not allow them to be interpreted within the framework of colonialism. Interpreting their action in Antarctica as colonialist is to force them to fit Eurocentric concepts that do not explain Argentina and Chile’s realities, practices and place in the international system. What is needed, therefore, is to understand how those differences affect their perceptions of Antarctica, and how that impacts political attitudes.

As a final note, the present work suggests that Antarctic colonialism should be seen not as a relation between the colonialist nation and the Antarctic territory, but as a relationship in which asymmetries between different nations are expressed by practices that reflect one country’s sense of superiority over the others. This results in universalist claims that disregard other agents’ identity, significations or practices regarding Antarctica, denying them or subsuming within their own categories or representations – as with colonialism. Only by taking into consideration these aspects and the way in which they result in acts of resistance can a more thorough understanding of Antarctic practices and Antarctic colonialism be reached.