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ABSTRACT
This paper presents an anthropological study of the Dumont d’Urville Station, Antarctica, and its objective is related to the recognition of identities through an ethnographic method. As human activities on the white continent intensify, this research focuses on the inhabitation strategies of an Antarctic station of an overwintering crew for the development of identity. This ethnographic study was conducted for 15 months, with one overwinter and two summer campaigns. The analysis of the material collected demonstrates, through the prism of station appropriation, not only the multiplicity of changing identities, but the interdependence of these identities. An Antarctic station can be studied as a whole, but it can also be divided into several subgroups. The two main categories in this article are the campagnards (the summer staff) and the overwinterers, who occupy a habitat that does not belong to any of them. The transmission of historical and cultural heritage, professional kinship and the circulation of overwinterers in the station are factors that contribute to this appropriation and that also emphasise the existence of identity subgroups even among an overwintering crew.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the two anonymous reviewers, the Institut polaire français Paul-Émile-Victor (IPEV) for supporting the fieldwork in Dumont d’Urville and all the people met in the station.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Radkowski, Anthropologie de l’habiter. Vers le nomadisme, 49.
2 See for instance Lefebvre, “La production de l’espace.”
3 See for instance O’Reilly, The Technocratic Antarctic: An Ethnography of Scientific Expertise and Environmental Governance; and Lasserre, Choquet, Escudé-Joffres, Géopolitique des pôles. Vers une appropriation des espaces polaires ?
4 Schweitzer, “Polar anthropology, or why we need to study more than humans in order to understand people,” 2.
5 Ibid., 3.
6 Hinkson, “Precarious Placemaking,” 52.
7 Segaud, Anthropologie de l’espace. Habiter, fonder, distribuer, transformer, 7.
8 O’Reilly and Salazar, “Inhabiting the Antarctic,” 11; and Antonello, “Finding Place in Antarctica” 181–203.
9 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties, The Antarctic Treaty, Article IV.
10 French Polar Institute Paul-Émile Victor.
11 O’Reilly and Salazar, “Inhabiting the Antarctic,” 11.
12 See for instance O’Reilly, The Technocratic Antarctic; and Salazar, “Geographies of Place-making in Antarctica.”
13 Martin-Nielsen, “Undecided dreams: France in the Antarctic, 1840–2021,” 3.
14 An organisation founded by Paul-Émile Victor and which was in charge of managing French expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic from 1947 to 1992. Today, these missions are carried out by the Institut polaire français Paul-Émile-Victor (French Polar Institute Paul-Émile-Victor).
15 For Terre Adélie (Adélie Land).
16 If the majority of the overwinterers are hired each year by the French Polar Institute Paul-Emile Victor (IPEV), three meteorologists are hired by Météo-France (the French national meteorological service) and four personnel, including the doctor and the district leader, are employed by the Terres australes et antarctiques françaises, TAAF, (The French Southern and Antarctic Lands).
17 See for instance Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot, Voyage en grande bourgeoisie. Journal d’enquête; and Favret-Saada, Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage.
18 Segaud, Anthropologie de l’espace. Habiter, fonder, distribuer, transformer, 72.
19 See for instance Hall, The hidden dimension.
20 See for instance Leroi-Gourhan, Milieu et techniques; and Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship.
21 Segaud, Anthropologie de l’espace. Habiter, fonder, distribuer, transformer, 69.
22 See for instance Hall, The hidden dimension.
23 Centrale électrique is the French term for ‘power plant’. La Centrale is the term used daily by the inhabitants. The French word Centrale also means ‘central’, ‘in the middle of’ or ‘essential’. A suitable nickname for one of the station’s most essential buildings.
24 Laboratory 2 studies geophysical sciences and is nicknamed ‘Geophy’. This system is also used for the glaciology laboratory ‘Glacio’ and the marine biology laboratory ‘Biomar’.
25 Surname for ornithologists.
26 Surname for meteorologists.
27 O’Reilly, The Technocratic Antarctic: An Ethnography of Scientific Expertise and Environmental, 1.
28 Nickname of the scientists.
29 Segaud, Anthropologie de l’espace. Habiter, fonder, distribuer, transformer, 165.
30 See for instance Depaule, Formation des liens sociaux et mobilisation des territoires. Les compétences des citadins dans le Monde arabe.
31 Mathieu, “Mode d’habiter: un concept à l’essai pour penser les interactions hommes-milieux,” 100.
32 Ibid.
33 Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, 11; and Hinkson, “Precarious Placemaking,” 53.
34 See for instance Deleuze, Pure Immanence: Essays on Life; and Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory.
35 Wolak, Johnson, “Social dynamics in an isolated, confined, and extreme workplace,” 443.
36 Wolak, Johnson, “Social dynamics in an isolated, confined, and extreme workplace,” 442.
37 See for instance Elias, Engagement et distanciation. Contribution à la sociologie de la connaissance.
38 Nickname for the technical staff.
39 Wolak, Johnson, “Social dynamics in an isolated, confined, and extreme workplace,” 442.
40 Wolak, Johnson, “Social dynamics in an isolated, confined, and extreme workplace,” 442.
41 See for instance O’Reilly, The Technocratic Antarctic; and Salazar, “Geographies of Place-making in Antarctica”.
42 Pablo Gabriel Fontana, Between the ice of the Orkney Islands: filming the beginnings of the Antarctic overwintering tradition, 11.
43 Howkins, “’Have You Been There?’ Some Thoughts on (Not) Visiting Antarctica,” 515.
44 Winter International Film Festival of Antarctica.