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Social Science Action Group

Values in Antarctica (VIA): Human Connections to a Continent

Background

The International Polar Year has increased people's awareness of the polar regions and stimulated high-quality scientific cooperation between participants from more than 60 countries. This increase in awareness has not been limited to the Antarctic community. Media coverage has brought information about the Southern Continent to millions of people around the world and has given them cause to consider the worth of Antarctica to humankind: the time, effort, and money put into work on the continent, and the benefits that humankind receives from this investment. These are questions of value – not only from an economic but also from a scientific, environmental, political, socio-cultural and intrinsic point of view.

Viewed from human perspective, Antarctica has many aspects. It is, of course, a well-established site for the natural sciences. However, the continent has also been interpreted by artists, analysed by economists, written about by anthropologists, discussed by political scientists, reviewed by human geographers, and researched by psychologists. Such diversity makes it abundantly clear that perspectives additional to those of the natural sciences are important for a complete understanding of the overall value that Antarctic holds for humankind.

Quite simply stated, human beings are the ones that travel to the Ice, form impressions about it, and decide what must be done in light of those impressions. Additionally, there are countless others who do not travel to Antarctica but nonetheless hold opinions about it and, most importantly, make or sway significant decisions based on those opinions. Some of these decisions will, collectively, affect entire global systems, primarily via their impacts on climate, natural resources, and international policy. Thus, understanding the extent and nature of the values that human beings place on Antarctica has large-scale and very serious implications.

Objectives

To date, there has been no co-ordinated effort to document the multiple values that Antarctica may hold. It is the primary objective of this action group to accomplish this task. The Social Science Action Group shall focus on cataloguing the range of values human beings place on Antarctica. This includes both intrinsic values (such as symbolic and spiritual) and extrinsic values (such as economic and scientific). A secondary objective will be explaining the importance of each value, or category of values, with respect to SCAR's mission.

Categories of values for discussion by Social Science Action Group

Figure 1: Overview of the types of values associated with Antarctica

 Researching this range of values, and their impacts, will require a diverse set of academic backgrounds. Figure 1 gives an indication of the categories of values that may be addressed by such a group, along with more specific values within each category. Please note that this figure is meant as a starting point for discussion. It is likely that some, if not all, of these categories may be abandoned in favour of better ones as the work of the group progresses. It is also expected that a significant amount of cross- and interdisciplinary discussion will take place in order to capture the complexity of the interaction between categories.

Steering Group members

The management of the Social Science Action Group is in the hands of a small number of researchers covering a wide range of disciplines. Members of this steering group, and their areas of expertise, are:

Kees Bastmeijer Law
Paul Berkman Political Sciences
Sanjay Chaturvedi Political/Cultural Geography
Alan Hemmings Antarctic Governance
Bernard Herber (Advisor) Economics
Machiel Lamers Integrated Management/Tourism
Elizabeth Leane Literature
Daniela Liggett (Co-Chair) Tourism
Juan Francisco Salazar Anthropology and Cultural/Media Studies
Gary Steel (Co-Chair) Psychology
Emma Stewart Human Geography

Expert Members

Luís Guilherme Resende de Assis Anthropology (Universidade de Brasília)

Work on the project "Values in Antarctica" brings together the breadth of polar social science and humanities research. Research contributions and cooperation are sought from polar researchers with an interest in this topic.

If you are interested in working with this group, please contact:
Daniela Liggett (daniela.liggett@canterbury.ac.nz) or Gary Steel (gary.steel@lincoln.ac.nz).

Further Information

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