Deep in Time : An Anthropologic Exploration of the Values of Antarctica’s Ice Core.

• Main Author: Pillon, Emilie
• Other Authors: Laboratoire Architecture Anthropologie (LAA), Laboratoire Architecture, Ville, Urbanisme, Environnement (LAVUE), Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis (UP8)-École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-La Villette (ENSAPLV), HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université (HESAM)-HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université (HESAM)-Université Paris Nanterre (UPN)-École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris Val-de-Seine (ENSA PVDS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Ministère de la Culture (MC)-Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis (UP8)-École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-La Villette (ENSAPLV), HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université (HESAM)-HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université (HESAM)-Université Paris Nanterre (UPN)-École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris Val-de-Seine (ENSA PVDS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Ministère de la Culture (MC), EGU
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2024
• Subjects: [SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology; Antarc*; Antarctica; EPICA; ice core
• Online Access: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04645437; https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-12664

International audience In the history of Antarctica’s science, Ice Core Science (ICS) holds a special place. Since the 80s, it is one of the main research fields as it allows scientists to connect with our earth’s past and future climate with the unavoidable change our society will face. Beyond EPICA and the DEEPICE training programme are leading projects as they build a legacy for ICS in Antarctica. The purpose of this paper is to examine how ICS and its infrastructure participate in the maintenance of Antarctica as a place of science, as a territory-laboratory. I will be presenting the preliminary results of a multi-situated ethnography on scientific communities working in and on Antarctica. For this presentation, I will be focusing on a field work started in 2023 with DEEP-ICE’s PhD students. A first round of interviews led me to a participating observation in a glaciology laboratory, following a PhD candidate during their analysis. Early 2024, a series of follow-up interview is planned to complete my dataset and complete the history of DEEPICE. Once retrieved, the value of an ice core sample is directly connected to its possibility of collecting data from a specific time frame, and by that, making new scientific questions emerge. The value of Antarctica’s sample is shown by the constant care it has received. Gestures and technic are specifically tested and repeated in preparation of Antarctica’s sample, even if they later disappears from published papers. Communication surrounding Beyond EPICA and DEEPICE highlights the challenges faced by scientists to retrieved ice core, promoting ICS, the excellence of Antarctica’s research while securing funds. The ambition to form fifteen PhD candidates shows the necessity of transmission and heritage, and the excellence expected to perform the future analysis. The samples are valuable not only as an object of science, or because they contain unique data set. They allow our society to exist in different timescales and to overcome human temporalities. With ICS, ...