A continent of and for whiteness?: “White” colonialism and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty

Abstract There are at least four ways in which Antarctic colonialism was white: it was paradigmatically performed by white men; it consisted in the taking of vast, white expanses of land; it was carried out with a carte blanche (literally, “blank card”) attitude; and it was presented to the world as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar Record
Main Author: Mancilla, Alejandra
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s003224741900069x
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S003224741900069X
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Summary:Abstract There are at least four ways in which Antarctic colonialism was white: it was paradigmatically performed by white men; it consisted in the taking of vast, white expanses of land; it was carried out with a carte blanche (literally, “blank card”) attitude; and it was presented to the world as a white, innocent adventure. While the first, racial whiteness has been amply problematised, I suggest that the last three illuminate yet other moral wrongs of the Antarctic colonial project. Moreover, they might be constitutive of a larger class of “white” colonialisms beyond the White Continent.