Abstract
I remember attending an event about polar governance in Canada nearly a decade ago, where an Antarctic marine scientist did not understand why representatives of the Government of Nunavut were cynical about some of his interventions. ‘But what’s wrong with good governance?’, he protested. The Nunavut policymakers saw the question as being one of whose models of governance. This interchange has always puzzled me. Jessica O’Reilly’s fascinating account of Antarctic scientists and policymakers, or ‘Antarcticans’, now goes some serious way in explaining why.
A significant consequence of knowing about the polar regions is that one is often asked to comment on a vast range of geographies. For specialists on other parts of the world, expertise is rarely expected to cover such geographical distance. But as a ‘Northernist’, I am often asked to talk about the South, or the other side of my world, to general audiences. Indeed, part of my impact activities involve informing and convincing publics about the fundamental differences between the poles. In this, as a ‘polar social scientist’ I am far from unconventional. And yet, many Arctic social scientists have shown barely disguised contempt for those interested in ‘the human Antarctic’ as a scholarly specialism. As a place lacking an indigenous population, Antarctica has many exceptionalities, but a central one has been that the writings about its social worlds have never become canonical. The Antarctic’s exceptionality has made it a place for the extremities of social science, such as students of tourism or the jurisprudence of the Antarctic Treaty System.
My experience has been that Antarctic natural scientists have never shared that insecurity. The Antarcticans, O’Reilly argues, are a particular type of ‘cultural group in which everyone is an expert’ (p. 6). She posits that these Antarcticans develop a special form of expertise that creates specific forms of governance, or epistemic technocracy. This technocratic mode of governance is peculiarly reliant on Antarctic scientific practice. In turn, such scientists are expected to be advocates for the Antarctic.
O’Reilly has done a considerable job here, by providing us with evidence of the scientific practices that construct Antarctic policy expertise, as well as portraits of some of the individuals involved. The ethnography is engaging, with some excellent material about processes of understanding ice sheets, biosecurity and ‘expert elicitation’ (p. 76), and all leavened with a little humour about urinary directors and the like.
It seems that this expectation of scientific governance becomes difficult for the Antarcticans, and can lead to existential crisis, as it ‘is very difficult…to find an individual who is well respected as both a scientist and a policy advisor’ (p. 165). What is interesting is that, when they travel, the Antarcticans have expected analogous forms of science-based governance to be effected for other environments, not least for the Arctic. And there have been some classic cases where Antarcticans have constructed themselves as having expertise in Arctic social sciences, with nefarious consequences.
In writing her book, though, it is perhaps regretful that O’Reilly herself does not engage as much with existing accounts, including ethnographies of Arctic scientists, as she might. There is an existing literature, for example, on the psychology of Antarcticans and life at polar bases, that is conspicuous in its absence here (e.g. Barbarito, 2001). This may be a good thing, of course, as constructing Antarctica as a terra nullius for social science, and particularly STS, means that the field does not have to confront the epistemic violence performed by regional experts on other parts of the world, and especially the Arctic. But it does echo some of her Antarcticans.
The degree of time spent on the ice does also seem a little underwhelming – 17 nights by my reckoning (a fortnight at an ice camp and three nights at Scott Base). But O’Reilly seems implicitly to anticipate this criticism from the outset, by noting that the Antarcticans themselves are ‘limited by time, funding, and challenging conditions’ (p. 2) and yet still exert huge environmental and political influence in speaking for the continent. Her argument that the Antarcticans construct epistemic technocracy in Indian conference halls and Scottish hotel lobbies as much as remote field camps is persuasive. And perhaps even raising her field time only reinforces codes of polar masculinity that are in need of subversion.
It must be stated, though, that this is an ethnography not so much of the people of the ice as of the networks that constitute Gateway Antarctica in Christchurch, New Zealand. This social context of Christchurch is significant, as the ‘local’ centre for polar heritage and, critically, the Antarctic tourism industry (that have both since been severely disrupted by the 2011 earthquakes). These Christchurch cultures may be rather different from those of pseudo-militarist logistics and scientific practice of other signatory states, including the British Antarctic Survey, or the use of private contractors, such as Leidos. In short, the Antarctic has a human geography that deserves further consideration. This important book is the start of a conversation.