Mawson and Mirnyy Stations: the spatiality of the Australian Antarctic Territory, 1954–61

Abstract

This article focuses on the spatiality of the Australian Antarctic Territory in the important 1954–61 period. Attending particularly to three key components of polar spatiality—geopolitics, international territorial law, and the built environment—the article analyses the development of the Territory as a unique Australian space. The 1954–61 period is particularly significant: during this period, the International Geophysical Year brought an unprecedented number of people to Antarctica; the continent's first permanent colonies were constructed; and, despite Cold War tensions, the 1961 Antarctic Treaty established the spatial configurations and rules which continue to govern the continent today. The article focuses particularly on two key stations in the Territory constructed during this period: Australia's Mawson Station and the Soviet Mirnyy Station. Mawson is a legal colony, designed to cement Australia's claim to 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent; Mirnyy, in contrast, is an anti-colony, designed to reject Australia's claim. How the individual spatialities of these two stations articulate to the broader politics of Antarctic territoriality—and particularly Australia's claim to the Australian Antarctic Territory—is the focus of this article.

Keywords:

• Australian Antarctic Territory
• cultural geography
• Mawson Station
• Mirnyy Station
• Cold War
• colonialism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the reviewer for productive feedback; the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University for a Sabbatical Fellowship which provided sustained access to key archives and to a stimulating research culture; and Kirsty McDonald for vital research support.

Notes

1. The Australian Antarctic Territory is 5,896,500 km², on average (AAD 2006); the Australian continent itself is 7,682,300 km².

2. The 1959 Antarctic Treaty entered into force in 1961.

3. This was ratified as official Soviet Antarctic policy in 1950.

4. The Pole of Relative Inaccessibility is the site most distant from all coastlines; the Geomagnetic Pole, unlike the South Pole, is determined by the Earth's shifting gravitational field.