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In recent years the circumpolar region has emerged as the key to understanding global climate change. The plight of the polar bear, resource extraction debates, indigenous self-determination, and competing definitions of sovereignty among Arctic nation-states have brought the northernmost part of the planet to the forefront of public consideration. Yet little is reported about the social world of environmental scientists in the Arctic. What happens at the isolated sites where experts seek to answer the most pressing questions facing the future of humanity?
Portraying the social lives of scientists at Resolute in Nunavut and their interactions with logistical staff and Inuit, Richard Powell demonstrates that the scientific community is structured along power differentials in response to gender, class, and race. To explain these social dynamics the author examines the history and vision of the Government of Canada's Polar Continental Shelf Program and John Diefenbaker's "Northern Vision", combining ethnography with wider discourses on nationalism, identity, and the postwar evolution of scientific sovereignty in the high Arctic. By revealing an expanded understanding of the scientific life as it relates to politics, history, and cultures, Studying Arctic Fields articulates a new theory of field research.
Advocating for a greater appreciation of science in the remote parts of the world, Studying Arctic Fields is an innovative approach to anthropology, environmental inquiry, and geography, and a landmark statement on Arctic science as a social practice.
Figures | xiii
Prologue | xv
Acknowledgments | xvii
Introduction | 3
1. Scientific Sovereignty, Nordicity, and the Canadian Nation | 27
2. Between Observation and Experiment in Arctic Fieldwork | 54
3. Base Cultures: The Spatial Organization of a Research Station | 76
4. Performing the Arctic Scientific Human | 98
5. Canada Day in Qausuittuq: Dramatizing Inuit Encounters | 125
6. Emotional Practices and Play: The Quotidian Provenance of Logistics | 150
7. Hidden Voices? Competing Visions and the Everyday Governance of Arctic Science | 163
Epilogue: Requiem for a Canadian Arctic? | 188
Note on Methodology, Sources, and Research Ethics | 193
Notes | 197
References | 215
Index | 233
Richard C. Powell is university lecturer in the Scott Polar Research Institute and Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge.
"Studying Arctic Fields is expertly researched, well-situated in the literature on the history and philosophy of science, and is engaging and well-written. There are no other works on a similar topic and it will engage a broad readership."
– David G. Anderson, University of Aberdeen
"Portraying the social lives of scientists in Resolute, Nunavut, and their interactions with logistical staff and Inuit, Richard Powell demonstrates that the scientific community is structured along power differentials in response to gender, class, and race. To explain these social dynamics, the author examines the history and vision of the Government of Canada's Polar Continental Shelf Program and John Diefenbaker's "Northern Vision", combining ethnography with wider discourses on nationalism, identity, and the postwar evolution of scientific sovereignty in the High Arctic. By revealing an expanded understanding of the scientific life as it relates to politics, history, and cultures, Studying Arctic Fields articulates a new theory of field research."
– Above & Beyond: Canada's Arctic Journal
"Powell has dug deep into the history books to provide an important overview of the political motivations of the Canadian government to create the PCSP in 1958 and how its mandate and name ("Project" to "Program") have changed over the years. This book should be required reading for any student interested in Arctic research, for polar historians, and for politicians with aspirations for northern development."
– Arctic
"Studying Arctic Fields [...] is highly readable and accessible to a wide audience, including the support staff at PCSP who make the field science possible. Powell has provided an excellent introduction to the Polar Continental Shelf Project and to the social contexts for the practice of Arctic field science in Canada."
– Anthropos
