WOMEN’S NARRATIVES OF POLAR ENCOUNTERS, EXTRACTIVISM AND EXPLORATION FROM THE 19TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT
What is the POLAR X PROJECT?
The literature of polar exploration is often constrained, whether explicitly or not, by ideas of heroism, nationalism, whiteness and masculinity. The POLAR X PROJECT proposes to interrogate these notions and collaboratively develop a new framework for thinking about polar narratives in the Arctic and Antarctic.
Led by Michèle Mendelssohn (Oxford University) & Cécile Roudeau (Université Paris Cité), the aim of the POLAR X PROJECT is to generate an innovative multi-disciplinary approach to investigate the vexed relationship between the extraction of scientific, natural and ethnographically specific resources from the 19th century to the present day. We aim to achieve this through the intersecting lenses of literature, politics, gender and indigeneity, history of science, environmental history, art history and visual studies. We hope to open the discussion more broadly to climatologists, geologists, geographers, anthropologists and polar studies specialists.
What is the POLAR X WORKSHOP AND SYMPOSIUM about and who is it for?
Over 2 days in Paris and online, the POLAR X WORKSHOP & SYMPOSIUM will provide an opportunity for established and emerging scholars to enter into conversation with one another over key texts, respond to works in progress, and reflect on what shifts in our conception of polar encounters might mean for our research and pedagogy.
The workshop will provide an opportunity for scholars at all career stages across multiple intersecting and overlapping fields to broaden their professional networks and create connections enabling future collaborations.
The intention is to provide a welcoming space for interventions that question the field’s past imperatives and propose new directions of travel.
13/06: The workshop
1:30-2pm – Coffee
2-2:30pm – Welcome, opening remarks & icebreaker
2:30-3.45pm – WORKSHOP 1: REFRAMING POLAR STUDIES AND GENDER
Format: This will be a hybrid event discussing polar materials. Participants will receive a pre-reading packet with texts and artefacts to spark discussion. Participants will be assigned to in 3 breakout rooms for 30 min of small group discussion with a facilitator in each room.
Breakout groups will then report back to the main group for 45 min of joint discussion.
Readings: click here.
Facilitators: Sandeep Bakshi (Université Paris Cité), Diana Chester (Sydney/Oxford Centre for Life Writing), Kyunney Takasaeva (University of Warsaw), Anne-Florence Quaireau (Université d’Angers), Sarah Pickman (Independent scholar), Catherine Lanone (Sorbonne Nouvelle)
Find your group here! (Password required)
3.45-4.15pm – Tea break – room 830
4:15-5.30pm – WORKSHOP 2: REFRAMING POLAR STUDIES AND EXTRACTIVISM
Format: This will be a hybrid event discussing polar materials. Participants will receive a pre-reading packet with texts and artefacts to spark discussion. Participants will be assigned to in 3 breakout rooms for 30 min of small group discussion with a facilitator in each room. Breakout groups will then report back to the main group for 45 min of joint discussion.
Readings: click here.
Facilitators: Verena Laschinger (Erfurt University), Halauniova Anastasiya (Sciences Po Paris), Abbie Garrington (Durham University), Marit Anne Hauan (Polarmuseum/ Université of Tromsø), Aurore Clavier (Université Paris Cité), Katherine Collins (University of Oxford)
Find your group here! (Password required)
5.30-6pm – Break
6:00-6:45pm (in Amphithéâtre 1, Olympe de Gouges building) – Jessica Houston (independent artist), Mariah Erkloo (University of British Columbia) & Okalik Eegeesiak (Indigenous rights activist/former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council) – Beyond Her Horizons (film followed by 10 minute Q&A)
Facilitator: Cécile Roudeau (Université Paris Cité)
Beyond Her Horizons is an all-female polar expedition that navigated the Northwest Passage in 2023 to honour stories of women’s involvement across disciplines in Arctic exploration. Indigenous leader Okalik Eegeesiak, artist Jessica Houston, and polar scientist Noémie Planat sailed aboard the 16-meter sailboat Que Sera, operated by the non-profit organization Fondation Pacifique. They visited Inuit communities in Pond Inlet, Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay, Tuktoyaktuk, and Nome. During the journey, Planat measured the salinity and temperature of the coastal Alaskan current while Eegeesiak and Houston recorded Inuit women sharing their knowledge of the land, lighting the qulliq (a traditional oil lamp) and sewing garments — skills that were essential in helping early male explorers during first contact. They also gathered stories from women across the fields of underwater archaeology, citizen science, and research. The resulting film presents these women’s perspectives on the Arctic regions accompanied by footage of the sky, the ocean, and their meeting place — the horizon.
Project contributors include Miriam Aglukkaq, Rhoda Arnakallak, Cathy Converse, Bernadette Dean, Okalik Eegeesiak, Mariah Erkloo, Isabelle Gapp, Barbora Halašková, Jessica Houston, Elisapie Inuarak, Joanna Kafarowski, Chassidy Kasook, Julia Kasook, Angeline Kiyoapik, Trisha Killiktee, Rhoda Koonoo, Genevieve LeMoine, Rebecca Luce-Kapler, Mary Muckpa, Aimie Néron, Abbie Ootova, Eavan O’Dochartaigh, Aaju Peter, Noémie Planat, Sunniva Sorby, Martha Tikivik, Julianne Yip, and Katherine Wilson.
Beyond Her Horizons suggests going beyond our limits of perception to reimagine our relationship to one another and to nature, whose centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is boundless.
6:45-7:15pm – Diana Chester (Sydney/ Oxford Centre for Life Writing)– Antarctic Sonic Essay (sounds followed by 10 minute Q&A)
Diana Chester is a sound studies scholar, educator, and artist whose work produces critically influential studies, methods, and outputs that use sound to traverse disciplinary boundaries using feminist, anti-colonial, and post-anthropocentric approaches to thinking and making. Their work draws from sound studies, archival studies, and ethnography and relies on field recording and composition to explore sound in diverse contexts by putting research and practice in direct conversation—deepening the capacities of both. Current projects include the study of sound and culture focused on religion and the environment, the audio essay as a form of sonic scholarship, and new artistic methods and practices to sonify scientific data sets.
14/06: The symposium
2-2.30pm – Coffee
2.30-3:15pm – WORKS IN PROGRESS 1 – GENDER AND EXTRACTIVISM: EXPLORATION, TRAVEL AND TOURISM
Format: In this pack, you will find the work in progress that you will be workshopping. Please read the Work in Progress materials beforehand. These workshops rely on your thoughtful engagement and are designed to be warm, generous, and constructive spaces.
Facilitator: Charlotte Alexandra Wrigley (University of Stavanger)
– Christian J. Drury (Durham University): “All the time the ice was speaking”: Glacier Tourism, Gender and the Ecocritical” – in person
– Elizabeth Leane (University of Tasmania): “Expeditioner or Tourist? The Pros and Cons of Activating Antarctica’s ‘Heroic’ Legacy in a Commercial Context” – online
3:15-3:30pm – Tea break
3:30-4:15pm – WORKS IN PROGRESS 2 – GENDER AND EXTRACTIVISM: AFTERMATHS, RETELLINGS AND FICTIONS
Facilitator: Paul Edwards (Université Paris Cité)
– Anne-Florence Quaireau (Université d’Angers): “Reframing the Arctic: Josephine Peary’s The Snow Baby(1901) and Children of the Arctic (1903)” – in person
– Marit Anne Hauan (University of Tromsø): “Unruly women! Polar areas and the art of changing class, social position, and role” – in person
4:15-4:30pm – Tea break
4:30-5pm – WORKS IN PROGRESS 3 – GENDER AND EXTRACTIVISM: CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE FORMATION
Facilitator: Verena Laschinger (University of Erfurt)
– Charne Lavery (University of Pretoria): “The Southern Ocean” – in person
5-5:15pm – Tea break
5.15-6.15pm – ROUNDTABLE: INTERDISCIPLINARY POLAR RESEARCH NOTES FROM THE FIELD
How do we approach Polar research from interdisciplinary angles? What do funders, communities, and scholars want and how do you reconcile those wants? What do we need to do differently at this moment to engage diverse communities and stakeholders responsibly? How do we reframe and at the same time acknowledge the political and ethical difficulties that are a part of this tradition?
Facilitator: Michèle Mendelssohn (University of Oxford)
Roundtable speakers (5-6 min each):
Jan Borm (Institut de recherches arctiques Jean Malaurie Monaco-UVSQ, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, UArctic Chair in Arctic Humanities —online), Sarah Pickman (Independent scholar—online), Katherine Collins (Oxford—online), Drew Lyness (Yukon – in person), Allegra Rosenberg (Independent Scholar/ Director of Terror Camp Polar Fan Conference – in person), Abbie Garrington (Durham—in person)
6.15-6.30pm – Comfort break
6.30-7.30pm – FUTURE PLANNING DISCUSSION AND CLOSING REMARKS (over drinks)
Discussion about future funding applications, research partnerships and publication.
Facilitator: Michèle Mendelssohn (University of Oxford) and Cécile Roudeau (Université Paris Cité)