The Antarctic continent, with its vast and icy expanse, has fascinated explorers, scientists, and diplomats for centuries. This interest arises not only from its desolation and inhospitable beauty but also from the geographical and political imaginations it has inspired throughout history.
A recent article by Joanne Yao explores how Antarctica, long conceived as the mythical Terra Australis Incognita, has been a stage for contradictory imaginations oscillating between the utopian and dystopian.
Through an intertextual analysis, Yao investigates how these imaginations have influenced international diplomacy and the creation of a global governance framework for the most isolated continent on the planet.
Antarctica as a Strange and Unknown Frontier
Since antiquity, Greek and Roman geographers speculated about the existence of a vast land at the southernmost point of the world, a territory they called Terra Australis Incognita. Over time, this speculation became an objective of European imperial ambitions, as they sought not only to discover but also to conquer this land supposedly rich in resources.
However, as explorations progressed, it was discovered that this territory was not a single landmass but two distinct continents: Australia and Antarctica. Despite the determination that Antarctica could not sustain a permanent human population, the fantastic possibilities it had sparked in the Western imagination continued to influence how this remote continent was perceived.
The concept of “borderscape”. or “border landscape”. plays a crucial role in Yao’s analysis. At first glance, Antarctica seems an unlikely place to think about borders, given its vast white landscape and the apparent uniformity of its frozen environment. The absence of permanent human communities and its inhospitable climate might suggest that there is no need to think in terms of political or territorial borders in this context.
However, by conceptualizing borders not only as literal lines separating states or communities but as spaces of liminality and fluidity, Antarctica emerges as a fertile ground for considering the practices of constructing and deconstructing borders, as well as the worlds these practices can generate.
The Scientific Utopia and the Dystopia of Thawing Ice
On one hand, Antarctica has been viewed as a utopian world, a frozen laboratory where science and international cooperation prevail over the everyday politics of sovereignty and power. This utopian imaginary was key to the diplomatic agreement reached at the Washington Conference of 1959, which froze disputes over territorial claims and established the Antarctic Treaty, a framework that has preserved Antarctica as a space for peaceful scientific research and international cooperation.
However, this utopian vision is not without its tensions. Yao notes that, although Antarctica is perceived as a place of science rather than everyday politics, these very imaginations have reinforced other borders, particularly between scientists, seen as the protagonists of Antarctic exploration, and the ice, whose depths they attempt to unravel and conquer.
Moreover, science fiction and speculative narratives have fueled dystopian imaginings of a thawed Antarctica, where alien and monstrous forces threaten to overwhelm human rationality. These representations reveal deep anxieties about the continent’s future and the potential disasters that could emerge from a shift in the balance of this fragile ecosystem.
The Human-Non-Human Encounter in the Border Landscape
Yao’s analysis delves into how the geographical imaginations of Antarctica have been shaped by the interaction between humans and the ice. The concept of “borderscape” is expanded here to include not only human processes but also non-human forces, such as the ice itself, which plays an active role in shaping these borders and the worlds that emerge from them. The notion of the “uncanny” is key to understanding how these border landscapes can generate new ways of imagining and organizing the world.
Antarctic ice, in its perpetual transformation between freezing and thawing, subverts the conceptualization of nature as an inert backdrop for human activities. Instead, the ice presents itself as a dynamic actor that participates in the creation of geographical imaginaries of Antarctica as a cold, strange, and exceptional space. This process not only challenges traditional borders between the human and non-human but also suggests a place where the crisis of the “natural” can produce both monstrous and sublime worlds.
At a time when the climate crisis raises new questions about Antarctica’s future, the exploration of these border landscapes and the imaginations they generate is more relevant than ever. Antarctica remains a mirror where humanity projects its fears and hopes, a place where the ice not only preserves the secrets of the past but also holds the keys to our collective future.
SOURCES
Joanne Yao, Borderscape Antarctica: The uncanny geographical imaginaries of Terra Australis Incognita. Political Geography, Volume 114, October 2024, 103178. doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2024.103178
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