Science, Technology and Society in the Polar Regions

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

Despite Antarctica being widely regarded as the paradigmatic “continent for science” since the late 1950s and the Arctic being narrated as one of the most important "laboratories" for studying environmental change in the age of the anthropocene, STS scholarship on the polar regions remains comparatively underdeveloped. The aim of this panel is to explore more analytical discussions concerning science and technology as agents of authority and power over both people, animals and places, considering how the Arctic and the Antarctic are governed, controlled, and exploited. We are particularly concerned with challenging the notion that the polar regions are conceptually separate from the rest of the globe and with, alternately, emphasizing how practices, prejudices, and preoccupations flow across lines of latitude. The kind of questions relating to the co-production of science, technology and global and local societies which the panel aims to contribute to include: How do national science programs enact sovereignty within legal frameworks that either complicate or sideline territorial claims? How does environmental monitoring construct images of fragility? What work does the rhetorical conflation of science with environmental protection do in obscuring other connections, such as those between science and subsurface mineral extraction? To what extent does traditional ecological knowledge in multilateral Arctic governance influence epistemological formations in Arctic sciences?

Sub Unit

• Papers for Open Panels / Science, technology and society in the polar regions

Discussant

• Rachel Ankeny, The University of Adelaide

Individual Presentations

• Antarctica: A Pharmacopea of Genetic Material - Juan Francisco Salazar, Western Sydney University

• Against Otherworldliness: 'Placing' the Arctic in the Anthropocene - Alexis Rider, University of Pennsylvania

• Why Did Norway Ban Polar Bear Hunting? - Peder Roberts, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

• For the common good of mankind – and Finnish cold weather technology - Justiina Dahl, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

• Militarizing And Demilitarizing The Cold War Arctic: Shifting Technologies, Strategies, And Field Practices - Ronald E Doel, Florida State University

Session Organizer

• Justiina Dahl, KTH Royal Institute of Technology