Resources and spatial analysis at actual Nenets campsites: Ethnoarchaeological implications

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss empirical evidence on the dynamics of occupation and site formation processes from contemporary mobile campsites in Northwest Siberia. The questions posed are derived generally from archaeological studies of Upper Paleolithic record in Europe. We document the active Nenets summer camps at lakes and the abandoned winter and spring camps in the open tundra and the forest tundra. Analysis of the floral and zoological resources shows that plant resources and fish are available predominantly in the summer while reindeer are abundant in these regions in fall and winter when they return from summer pastures further north. When natural resources are not available, groups supplement with food purchased at shops. Within these living camps, “structures évidentes” and “structures latentes” of classical French paleoethnology cannot be distinguished as clearly as at Upper Paleolithic sites: and architectural remains, ash from hearths, and other objects may be removed from the central areas towards the site peripheries. However the investigated camps preserve a discrete structure with interior living areas (including children’s playgrounds), exterior areas with evidence of reindeer carcass processing, woodworking, and other activities, peripheral toss zones, and dispersed activity remains in the surrounding landscape.     

Between Spectacle and Science: The Aurora in Central Europe, 1870s–1880s

Abstract

The article discusses the return and reception of two Austro-Hungarian arctic expeditions in 1874 and 1883, respectively. Both expeditions conducted extensive auroral research. The article focuses on the media discourse of the time: how the expeditions including their scientific aims and outcomes were perceived in the Viennese press and society. The reception given to each of the expeditions and the manner by which each was covered in the press differed greatly; accordingly, the aurora borealis, a quintessential polar phenomenon itself, was ascribed with strikingly dissimilar meanings in the media. Whereas in 1874 domestic interests were projected onto the Arctic, with the aurora symbolizing the monarchy's bright future, in 1883 media attention focused on local events such as the International Electrical Exhibition in Vienna; the Arctic no longer served as a potent symbol for Austro-Hungarian affairs. Analyses of various forms of media such as texts, poems, and illustrations show the cultural situatedness of scientific knowledge and its popularization. Representations and interpretations of the aurora can only be understood within the political, social, technological and cultural contexts of the time.     

Widows’ Men: The Admiralty Board,Precedent, and Pensions for the Widows of the Lost Franklin Expedition

When the British Admiralty announced in January, 1854 that it intended to strike the names of the officers of Sir John Franklin's missing polar expedition off the active Navy List, it had years of legal precedent to support its right to do so. The Board used such precedent to its advantage in ending a search its members had considered fruitless since 1849, the year the expedition's food would have run out. However, in their treatment of the widows made from that decision, Board members consistently pushed against established practice in order to do what they felt was right: to give the widows as generous a pension as the Treasury would approve, and to do so in defiance of the strict rules of eligibility. In 1844, only months before Franklin and 128 men set forth to discover the Northwest Passage, new eligibility guidelines were set that both limited women's access to pensions, and hampered the Board's ability to grant them. Archival evidence that forms the core of this article shows, however, that compassionate treatment of the expedition's widows was central to all discussions of how the Admiralty might move forward on the Franklin disaster, between promoting officers in absentia in order to augment pensions, to waiving the need for proving the date of death in order for families to collect the explorers’ back pay. As this article argues, the 1854 Admiralty Board had powerfully split loyalties: on the one hand, as the press acknowledged, the Board had a duty to perform on behalf of the public, to avoid wasting the nation's money on frivolous or useless searches for men assumed to be long dead; on the other hand, it felt equally strongly the obligation to support those widows who were the product of such imperial adventuring, even in defiance of its own rules. Through an analysis of legal precedent, Naval Instructions, and private Admiralty Board documents, in the case of the Franklin expedition's widows one can perceive a few naval administrators who tried to keep some of the nation's most vulnerable citizens in view even as they managed the bottom line.     

Appropriating the Aurora: Christopher Hansteen and the Circumpolar Auroral Rings

Abstract

The Norwegian astronomer and mathematician Christopher Hansteen (1784–1873) is best known for his career-long contribution to the study of terrestrial magnetism. In his monumental Magnetismus der Erde (1819), he suggests that the earth had two magnetic axes and thus four magnetic poles. It is less known that Hansteen planned to publish a second part of Magnetismus der Erde devoted solely to the polar lights, but this work was never completed. In this article, I reconstruct Hansteen's strategy for studying the aurora borealis and explain how the polar lights were connected to his four-pole theory. I emphasize in particular the spatial and geographical dimension of Hansteen's approach, focusing on his analysis of both the auroral corona and the auroral ring. In accordance with his own theory of terrestrial magnetism, he suggested the existence of four such circumpolar auroral rings, each centered around one of the four magnetic poles identified in Magnetismus der Erde. Hansteen's auroral project entailed an appropriation of earlier ideas and methods, especially those of Edmond Halley and Alexander von Humboldt. He sought to bolster the claim for the privileged position of the Scandinavian countries for observing and analyzing the aurora.     

From “Spitsbergen” to “Svalbard”. Norwegianization in Norway and in the “Norwegian Sea”, 1820–1925

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to enhance our understanding of the Norwegian acquisition of Spitsbergen/Svalbard by using the concept of Norwegianization as a tool for analyzing the political and diplomatic background for the Spitsbergen treaty of 1920, and comparing the Norwegianization polar politics with the Norwegianization concept used to analyze the internal colonization in the Sami districts of northern Norway during the same period. The paper concludes that the politics of Norwegianization on the main islands in the North Ocean – renamed the Norwegian Sea by Norwegian oceanographers in the 1870s – was an offensive policy of expansionism, motivated by historical and geographical considerations and alleged rights to re-establish the Medieval Norse empire.     

Is a pixel worth 1000 words? Critical remote sensing and China's Belt and Road Initiative

As a novel means of researching China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this article advances a critical remote sensing agenda that connects the view from above provided by satellite imagery with the grounded, qualitative methodologies more typical of political geography such as ethnographic fieldwork. Satellite imagery is widely used to produce empirics relating to the BRI, and the Chinese state is showing increasing interest in applying Earth observation data to governance. A more critical approach attentive to the politics of remote sensing, especially in light of China's emergence as a space and satellite power and its embrace of big data, is needed to more precisely reveal what changing pixels represent on the ground and expose the potential issues with data captured from high above the planet. This paper offers three theoretical and methodological objectives for critical remote sensing. First, I reflect on the geopolitics involved in the production and analysis of satellite imagery. Second, through analysis of night light imagery, which captures illuminated anthropogenic activities, I interrogate metanarratives of development. Third, I engage with qualitative methods by “ground-truthing” remote sensing with ethnographic observations along China's borders. I also seek to avoid the methodological nationalism often present in remote sensing research by situating these mixed-methods case studies at scales above and below the nation-state. As one of the largest development interventions in history materializes, pursuing critical remote sensing can create opportunities for social scientists to leverage quantitative and geospatial methods in support of more equitable and sustainable futures.     

Population,light, and the size distribution of cities

We provide new insights on the city size distribution of countries around the world. Using more than 10,000 cities delineated via geospatial data and a globally consistent city identification scheme, we investigate distributional shapes in all countries. In terms of population, we find that Zipf's law holds for many, but not all, countries. Contrasting the distribution of population with the distribution of economic activity, measured by nighttime lights, across cities we shed light on the globally variant magnitude of agglomeration economies. Deviations from Zipf's law are to a large extent driven by an undue concentration in the largest cities. They benefit from agglomeration effects which seem to work through area rather than through density. Examining the cross‐country heterogeneity in the city size distribution, our model selection approach suggests that historical factors play an important role, in line with the time of development hypothesis.     

Gender in Polar Air: Roald Amundsen and his Aeronautics

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the polar aeronautics of the 1920s as men, that is: to take seriously the obvious – but so far more or less ignored fact – that polar history is a gendered history: a man's history. It is time to ask what kind of men the polar aviators were: that is the purpose of scrutinizing polar history as a part of the history of masculinity. A more general purpose of gender studies is to study the variety of masculinity as an illustration of the historicity of human behaviour. The conclusion of the article is that the polar aviators were representatives of an archaic kind of masculinity that deviated from the hegemonic engineer-hailing masculinity of the 1920s. They were escapists, of course. They loved flying, of course – and certainly they worshipped technology. At the same time, however, they acted extremely emotionally and even irrationally towards themselves. They were dictated by their strong feelings in a degree that collided with both common sense and the ideals of correct manliness. Thus, the article is intended to be a contribution not only to the study of masculinity, but even to the discussion in social research on the meaning of emotions in human interrelationships.     

Editorial

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show how national interests and western ideas about the polar wilderness influenced initiatives taken in the early decades of the twentieth century to protect the natural environment of the Arctic islands of Spitsbergen, today called Svalbard. After a brief outline of the environmental history of the islands, the explanatory significance of a game theory-based assumption about the predicament of nature conservation on common land is discussed by applying it to this historical case. It is the environmental dilemma known as the “tragedy of the commons”. Some elements of the western and Scandinavian ideological interpretations of the Arctic nature are introduced as a background to the following discussion of the most significant early initiative of nature conservation in the Arctic: Hugo Conwentz's proposal for the protection of the nature of Spitsbergen of 1914. The conception and outcome of Conwentz's initiative is explained by references to the political, social and ideological contexts of early twentieth-century science and colonialism. In the final section, the post-war development of the environmental administration of the islands is correlated to the political situation following World War I with its many historical contingencies and the breakdown of internationalism in science and nature conservation.     

Science, sovereignty and nation: Canada and the legacy of the International Geophysical Year, 1957–1958

This paper considers some of the Canadian scientific and political responses to the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957–1958. Histories of the IGY have hitherto often concentrated on scientific activity in Antarctica and advances in satellite technology, made manifest in the Soviet launch of Sputnik. Such histories hint at a contradiction at the heart of the IGY – attempts at international scientific cooperation were always concurrent with cold war national rivalries. These tensions were not limited to the superpowers and the IGY helped focus scientific competition between other national polities, including Canada. By examining the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Government of Canada's Polar Continental Shelf Project in April 1958, the paper investigates attempts to mobilize a pan-Canadian nationalism in response to perceived American and Soviet incursions upon territorial sovereignty during the IGY. The PCSP's ostensible purpose was to collect geophysical data for US satellite launch tests in the Canadian High Arctic. However, by placing the founding of the PCSP within the political context of the First UN Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1958, and the unprecedented electoral success of the Progressive Conservatives across Canada during the same year, the paper develops a more sensitive appreciation of the complicated historical geographies of the IGY.