‘Wanting the Children and Wanting K2’: The incommensurability of motherhood and mountaineering in Britain and North America in the late twentieth century

The death of British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves, in 1995 while climbing K2 in Pakistan, the world's second-highest mountain, sparked debates in Britain and North America within mountaineering communities and the press. Hargreaves was a contentious figure because she climbed distant, high mountains as the mother of young children, and was thus constructed a ‘bad mother’. Drawing on ethnographic research in Banff, Canada and Nepal in 1999 and 2000, as well as mountaineering and other media, I examine the social anxiety arising over mother-mountaineers, in particular at a mountain film festival in Banff. Hargreaves and American Kitty Calhoun, who was also criticized, were both professional mountaineers and identified themselves as ‘normal working mothers’. I contextualize their maternal subjectivities within the wider public scrutiny over white, middle-class, working mothers at that time, to show how female mountaineers mediated their mountaineering desires within dominant discourses about ‘sacrificial motherhood’, which resulted in ambivalence. Hargreaves wrote in her diary while waiting to climb K2, ‘It eats away at me—wanting the children and wanting K2. I feel like I'm being pulled in two’. I argue that these women were situated at the intersection of two clashing discourses—mountaineering as a journey far removed from home and motherhood as an intensive presence with one's children bound to home.

‘El deseo de niños y el deseo de K2’: la inconmensurabilidad de la maternidad y el alpinismo en Inglaterra y Norte América en los finales de siglo XX

La muerte de la alpinista británica, Alison Hargreaves, en 1995 mientras escaló K2 en Pakistán, el segundo pico más alto del mundo, resultaba en debates en Inglaterra y Norte América en las comunidades de alpinismo y los medios de comunicación. Hargreaves era una figura discutidora porque como una madre con niños pequeños, escalaba montañas altas y lejos, y como consecuencia fue construido como ‘mala madre’. Haciendo uso de medios de comunicación de alpinismo y otros, y una investigación etnográfica in Banff, Canada y Nepal en 1999 y 2000, examino la ansiedad social surgiendo de alpinistas madres, en particular en la festival cine de Banff. Hargreaves y la americana Kitty Calhoun, que fue criticado también, eran alpinistas profesionales y se identificaban ‘madres trabajadoras normales’. Contextualizo sus subjetividades maternales dentro del escrutinio del público a las madres trabajadoras blancas de media clase y muestro como median las alpinistas femeninas sus deseos de escalar dentro de discursos dominantes sobre ‘la maternidad expiatoria’, lo que resulta en ambivalencia. Escribío Hargreaves en su diario cuando esperaba a escalar K2: ‘Me está comiendo—deseando a los niños y deseando a K2. Siento que se me parte en dos’. Argumento que estas mujeres se situaron a las intersecciones de dos discursos en conflicto—alpinismo como un viaje que está muy lejos del hogar y la maternidad como una presencia intensiva con los niños que están obligado al hogar.     

CHOOSING NOT TO LOOK: REPRESENTATION,REPATRIATION, AND HOLOCAUST ATROCITY PHOTOGRAPHY1

This essay considers, from ethical and historical‐critical perspectives, alternatives to unconditional public access to Holocaust atrocity photographs. Photographic images have become the common coin of public awareness and historical information about the Holocaust. For the generations immediately following the genocide, atrocity photos and images of Nazi crimes served as vital testimony. For succeeding generations, however, access to certain “recirculated” images (Barbie Zelizer) has created a sense of familiarity with the Holocaust and with the National Socialist era that may prevent, rather than facilitate, engagement with the historical subject, particularly for students. Few of the victims of the Shoah pictured in either the best known or the least circulated images were willing subjects. As such, the bulk of Holocaust and National Socialist photography should perhaps fall under the same category as the results of Nazi medical experiments: they have been rendered inadmissible because they are ethically compromised materials, made without the participants’consent. While I am not advocating the wholesale destruction of Holocaust photographs, I will suggest that removing them from view or “repatriating” them might serve Holocaust memory better than their reduction to atrocious objects of banal attention. Just as the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 provided a mechanism for the reclassification of human remains, from ethnographic to spiritually sacred artifacts, we should consider what a similar reclassification of Holocaust photographs could offer. Have Holocaust atrocity photographs reached the limits of their usefulness as testimony?     

THE HOUSING EXPERIENCE OF CHRONICALLY MENTALLY DISABLED CLIENTS IN HAMILTON, ONTARIO

The chronically mentally disabled (CMD) are seriously disadvantaged in the housing market by reason of disability and low socio-economic status. In many North American cities, the CMD are among the groups most vulnerable to homeiessness. Little attention has been paid to the housing situation and residential history of the CMD despite their supposed effects on coping ability and community tenure. This analysis of the residential experience of CMD clients in Hamilton, Ontario, is part of a larger study examining the factors affecting coping and satisfaction among the CMD in the community. The ghettoization of clients into board and care homes in the inner city is replicated in Hamilton. Serious disadvantage in the housing market is confirmed; clients frequently have to accept unsatisfactory living conditions despite repeated efforts to achieve improvements. In terms of residential mobility, two groups of clients are identified: the highly mobile and the more stable. The strongest predictors of mobility, education, and preference for independent living imply the effects of housing expectations and the difficulties associated with congregate living situations. Strong association is shown between housing satisfaction and composite indices of client coping in the community. Les clients psychiatriques (CP) ont des problèmes sérieux de logement pour des raisons d'incapacité et de statut inférieur au rang socio-économique. Dans plusieurs cités Nord-américaines, les CP sont parmi fes groupes les plus vulnérables dêtres sans logis. ll y a un manque d'égards envers les CP vis-à-vis la crise du logement et du dossier résidential, malgré leurs efforts prétendus de se débrouiller et de demeurer dans la communauté. Cette analyse d'expérience résidentielle de CP à Hamilton, Ontario, fait partie d'une plus grande étude qui examine les raisons qui influent sur la qualité de la vie parmi les CP de la communauté. Le phénomene de l'amalgamation des clients dans des pensions de famille au centre-ville est reproduit à Hamilton. Les problèmes sérieux de logement sont confirmés; les clients doivent souvent accepter des conditions de vie peu satisfaisantes, malgré les efforts répétés pour les améliorer. Au point de vue de la mobilité résidentielle deux groupes sont identifiés: les plus mobiles et les plus stables. fa plus grande correspondance de mobilité, d'éucation et de préférence pour la vie indé-pendante, donne à entendre fes effets d'espérance de logement et les difficultés associees avec une vie en groupes. ll y a une forte association entre la satisfaction du logement et les indices composés du client qui se débrouille dans la communauté.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in this Article: Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the religious significance of food to medieval women. Judith M. Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock Before the Plague. Susan Dwyer Amussen, An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England. Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570-1640. Franca Pieroni Bortolotti, Sul movimento politico delle donne. Scritti inediti. Alison Prentice, Paula Bourne, Gail Cuthbert Brandt, Beth Light, Wendy Mitchinson and Naomi Black, Canadian Women: A History. Patricia Hollis, Ladies Elect, Women in English Local Government, 1865-1914. Ann Morley with Liz Stanley, The Life and Death of Emily Wilding Davison. A Biographical Detective Story, with Gertrude Colmore's The Life of Emily Davison’. Susan Kingsley Kent, Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860-1914.     

Earth Sciences Comparative Matrix: A Comparative Method for Geoheritage Assessment

Geological heritage is insufficiently recognised in Australia; it should be considered in its own right, not as an addendum to other heritage values. The lack of a suitable robust and repeatable methodology has seriously constrained the assessment of geological sites suitable for the National Heritage List (NHL). A desktop assessment of Australian desert landscapes required intrinsic natural values of a diverse group of sites, spread over a vast area, to be assessed against NHL criteria. The Earth Sciences Comparative Matrix (ESCoM) was developed for this study. In the ESCoM, sites are grouped in process themes. Each is assessed against NHL criteria then compared with other similar places, according to degree of unusualness, integrity, and authenticity. A site scoring well across multiple themes has increased heritage significance. The overall values of a site are quantified, leading to a qualitative judgement on whether it achieves the threshold of outstanding heritage value. Examples of assessment using this method are given. In this methodology, significance determination is based on rigorous comparisons of specific values. It is semi‐quantitative, repeatable, and robust. It differs from other geoheritage assessment methods in its combination of process‐based groupings (facilitating the separation of site type from heritage criteria), matrix structure (minimising complexities of scale or diversity), and use of numerical rankings as an aid in decision‐making. While the study for which ESCoM was developed was focused on landforms, it can be used for other types of geoheritage (e.g. fossils, tectonic processes), with modification of matrix theme headings.     

Considering Quipus: Andean Knotted String Records in Analytical Context

The knotted string records used by the Incas to record numerical information and to perform royal histories remain elusive of decipherment. Recent interest among anthropologists in how societies use objects to preserve and record memories has stimulated new research on these quipus. Close analysis of ancient quipus reveals their capacity for containing information that might have been read or recalled. A continuing tradition of displaying quipus in one Andean town shows how the objects function to validate authority, even when they cannot be read, and suggests their deep connection to local notions of history and community.     

Working Port or Lifestyle Port? A Preliminary Analysis of the Port Adelaide Waterfront Redevelopment

This paper presents preliminary analysis of a larger study examining the re‐making of the Port Adelaide waterfront. It offers insights into the way the processes of urban entrepreneurialism endeavour to appropriate and transform landscapes by building on a particular heritage of place while simultaneously dismantling this image to recreate an alternative form. The proposal to refashion the Port's waterfront into a lifestyle and tourist destination will dramatically transform the current socio‐spatial organisation of working and community life as perceived and valued by those local communities currently living in and around the Port area. The removal of a small group of boatyard operators from the inner‐harbour, as part of the redevelopment, is symbolic of local concern of the potential loss of a particular way of working and community life that is steeped in history, heritage and class and is particular and peculiar to the Port Adelaide waterfront. The findings support the view that the process of urban entrepreneurialism in the re‐imaging of place is transformative, selective and exclusive.