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Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Where Borders Break Down : Recollections of a Polar Traveller
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'WHEN EXPLAINING MY Antarctic research to new acquaintances, at a dinner party or a barbeque, I can usually predict the direction of the conversation. First comes surprise and – depending on the crowd – perhaps delight that someone working in the humanities conducts research on the Antarctic region. Then almost always the question follows of whether I have ever visited the remote place that occupies so much of my intellectual life. I understand the impulse behind this question: part polite curiosity, but also genuine intrigue about a part of the world that, even now, comparatively few people have had the chance to experience. It’s a question I would ask, were our positions reversed. But it also raises a whole series of uncomfortable issues.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Griffith Review Real Cool World no. 77 2022 24893928 2022 periodical issue

    'Antarctica is both a physical locality and an imaginary possibility – as a pivot around which the world turns, it has proven historically to be a space where human ideas of exploration, investigation and fantasy have played out. 

    'Yet it is the only continent on Earth that is truly free of government – a place where an international treaty from sixty years ago holds firm. National governments stake claims in the understanding that they will never be enforced, either conceptually or militarily. 

    'But this vast, dry continent is a litmus test for change – a canary in the coal mine of climate crisis. It is a deceptively rich eco-system that negotiates extremes every day, yet the signals it is sending are increasingly ones of distress: ice melt, glacial erosion and a profound change in the character and distribution of its sparse and precious flora.

    'From climate science, glaciology and marine biology to geopolitics, international law and more, this collection, produced in association with the Australian Antarctic Division, foregrounds subjects and stories from the planet’s deepest south. ' (Publication summary)

    2022
    pg. 40-50
Last amended 2 Aug 2022 09:56:14
40-50 Where Borders Break Down : Recollections of a Polar Travellersmall AustLit logo Griffith Review
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