“Who goes there? Science, fiction, and belonging in Antarctica”
Sep 2nd, 2012 by Nick
Who goes there? Science, fiction, and belonging in Antarctica by Elena Glasberg is, in part, an ice-pertinent and comprehensive review of John Carpenter’s “The Thing”:
Tracing this story of the threatening alien ‘thing’ through its two filmic iterations – The Thing From Another World (1951) and The Thing (1982) – this article examines the implicit contention of contemporary governance in Antarctica: that enlightened science under national programs is the best way to secure Antarctica’s global future as a place of value. The article therefore concerns itself in part with the ATS as governance structure and specifically with US national science, arguing that national presence in Antarctica is not benign, natural, or necessary. It also challenges the consensus celebration of the resiliency of the ATS, and instead questions the forms of human activity and inhabitation it has allowed, and considers the possibilities of governance it has defended against or even permanently forestalled. Antarctica is thus a place more complex and layered than its popular namings of ‘white desert,’ ‘continent for peace,’ or ‘frozen laboratory’ suggest.
A signatory of a commemorative Antarctic Treaty, 2009 (photo: atsummit50.org)
