Science and culture in the Kerguelen Islands: a relational approach to the spatial formation of a subantarctic archipelago

• Published in: Island Studies Journal
• Main Author: Prince, Solene
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Univ Prince Edward Island, Inst Island Studies
• Subjects: geo; hist; Kerguelen; Kerguelen Islands
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.63; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00441/55237/56718.pdf; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00441/55237/

The Kerguelen Islands are devoid of a permanent population, but are nonetheless interlinked to past and current human activities that have shaped their subantarctic landscape. In the past decades, the archipelago has become a French outpost for scientific research where scientists, support staff, research assistants, and travelers assemble during temporary missions. In this article, I present the spatial formation of islands as relational in order to explore how the material and the cultural converge to make the Kerguelen Islands a place of both mundane practice and global interconnection. These spatialities intertwine the features of the landscape with pre-departure preparations, animal encounters, scientific rigour, daily routines, and past human activities. I advance these narratives by analyzing 18 blogs of French sojourners who have spent extensive time on the Kerguelen Islands. I ultimately give islands without a permanent population a character unlike that of isolation and contemplation as is usually attributed to cold-water islands of the (sub) polar seas.