Walking and sitting in the Australian Antarctic territory: mobility and imperial space

• Main Author: Collis, Christy
• Other Authors: Vannini, P
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Ashgate Publishing Limited 2009
• Subjects: Antarctic; Australian Antarctic Territory; South Pole; Antarc*; Antarctica; South pole
• Online Access: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/29603/

In 1995 and 1997, two major Australian expeditions travelled to Antarctica. They were the most heavily-reported Antarctican events of their two years: they were charged with the public production of Australian Antarctic spatiality. Both published exploration narratives: Don and Margie McIntyre’s Expedition Icebound generated an illustrated coffee-table book, Two Below Zero: A Year Alone in Antarctica, and the Spirit of Australia South Pole Expedition published its narrative as a video titled Walking on Ice: The History-Making Expedition to the South Pole. Yet, despite the fact that the two polar trips took place during the same period, their spatialities are markedly different. Walking on Ice is a mobile narrative of imperial exploration, while Two Below Zero is a static spatial story of colonial settlement. How polar mobility and relative immobility figure in Australia’s perceptions of, and claim to, nearly half of Antarctica is the focus of this chapter.