Equal Opportunities on Ice: Examining gender and institutional change at the British Antarctic Survey, 1975-1996

This dissertation examines the recent history of an institution with a rich and varied heritage and a proud culture. In recognition of the limitations of this project, due to both the inevitably subjective research process and the constraints of research at the master’s level, I would like to begin by establishing a few things that I consider this dissertation to be, and a few things that I consider it not to be. This dissertation explores the dismantling of a discriminatory policy at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), and the corresponding progress toward women’s equality in Antarctica. It ostensibly traces the evolution of BAS’s exclusionary policy toward women in Antarctica, beginning with the passage of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act and concluding with the 1996 announcement that BAS had become a full equal opportunities employer. Along the way it traces a progression of policy amendments that gradually gave women greater access to Antarctic fieldwork. But this dissertation also is about how an institution understood its own gendered identity during a period of dramatic institutional change. It explores the beliefs, norms, and networks that intersected with an entrenched gender paradigm, in an attempt to explain how the assumption that BAS could operate as a modern scientific institution under a masculinist gender paradigm was destabilised in the late 1970s, contested from within and without during the 1980s, and displaced by a new set of gendered norms toward the end of that decade. In sum, I argue that women’s increasing access to Antarctic field opportunities with the British Antarctic Survey between 1975 and 1996 should be understood in terms of broader and more fundamental processes of institutional change at BAS. However, I acknowledge that the story that unfolds in this dissertation cannot be exhaustive. This dissertation offers one possible path through the BAS Archives, and future researchers may well find others that are equally or more illuminating. It is therefore worth briefly mentioning a few things that should be understood to be outside the scope of this dissertation. This dissertation will not deal in any great detail with the gendering of scientific disciplines in Antarctica or the evolution of Antarctic research agendas. Though I have included relevant biographical information where possible, it also does not aim to comprehensively examine the scientific backgrounds and professional trajectories of rear-­?guard actors or reformers, though this may be of interest to future research. It also is not about heroism and gender, which has been extensively explored by Antarctic historians, though the narrative that emerges will in some aspects build on their work.1 And although this dissertation may contribute to one aspect of an understanding of what defined a scientific institution as modern in the late twentieth century, it does not claim to offer any concrete answers. Instead, this dissertation offers a way to consider the complex, multi-­?causal process of institutional change that co-­?evolved with women’s formal equality at BAS. In doing so, it explores how the overlapping, and sometimes oppositional, influences of agents, institutional relationships, and socio-­?political currents shaped BAS’s policy on women. It does not seek to lionize or vilify any of the actors involved, and it does not seek to imply that any one individual’s perceptions or contributions were monolithic. Rather, it examines how the dilemma of institutional change and the challenges and opportunities of gender progress were variously perceived at different times by different people. Most importantly, what I propose here is one of many possible routes of understanding this period of transition using the British Antarctic Survey Archives. Therefore, it is my intention that this dissertation should not only contribute to an understanding of gender at BAS, but also demonstrate the value of this history to a number of important questions in the history and philosophy of science, science studies, and feminist geography today

“There was no ‘first woman’”: The historical politics of gender, science, and exploration in twentieth-century US Antarctic fieldwork

The following dissertation examines the history of gendered change in twentieth century Antarctic fieldwork, focused on the US Antarctic Research Program. It responds to the calls of feminist historical geographers and historians of science for critical analysis of gendered exclusion and inclusion in remote scientific spaces, which represents a lacuna in the studies of exploration and fieldwork. The dissertation responds with the first in-depth study of the norms, narratives, practices, and processes that underpinned the exclusion of women from US Antarctic activity through most of the twentieth century, as well as those that structured women’s eventual access. In so doing, it contributes to debates about gendered boundaries in science and exploration, illuminating a complex relationship between discursive and institutional change and arguing for greater appreciation of the link between historiography and social change. The dissertation advances both chronologically and thematically, its structure guided by texts authored by a series of women who sought access to Antarctica in the twentieth century. Following the lead of their stories, each chapter examines a particular era in the development of US Antarctic science, politics, and culture and in the evolution of women’s access to the field. The resulting analysis not only recovers the contributions of women who have been marginalized from Antarctic history and historiography: it also reveals the contested ideological and administrative boundary work required to ensure women’s marginality, as well as the contingency and nonlinearity of eventual progress. Primary analysis is based on archival research and interviews. This includes analysis of underexamined sources in key archives as well as the recovery and/or creation of new source material, including archival records uncovered through the research process as well as dozens of new oral history interviews conducted with early women participants in Antarctic fieldwork.This PhD thesis was supported by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Additionally, archival work and interviews were supported by the Royal Geographical Society (with IGB) with a Dudley Stamp Memorial Award; by a grant-in-aid from the Friends of the Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics; by a special project grant from the British Society for the History of Science; and by awards facilitated by the University of Cambridge Department of Geography

Intersectionality and International Polar Research

Recent initiatives in polar research like Women in Polar Science and Women of the Arctic have shone a light on the strengths of female polar researchers and the struggles they have faced in their respective careers. These initiatives have started and contributed to ongoing conversations in the polar research community about increasing diversity and making the field more inclusive.In this commentary, we discuss the need to focus intersectionality in diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives in polar research, and to address intersecting barriers faced by members and would-be members of our fields. These barriers are varied, often overlapping, and include, but are not limited to: gender identity; sexuality; socioeconomic status; language; disability and race. Polar research is poised to benefit from a tremendous diversity of ideas and approaches if we as a community can fully commit ourselves to understanding and addressing overlapping, interconnected barriers to equality and progress in polar research.<br/

Intersectionality and international polar research

Abstract Recent initiatives in polar research like Women in Polar Science and Women of the Arctic have shone a light on the strengths of female polar researchers and the struggles they have faced in their respective careers. These initiatives have started and contributed to ongoing conversations in the polar research community about increasing diversity and making the field more inclusive. In this commentary, we discuss the need to focus on intersectionality in diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives in polar research, and to address intersecting barriers faced by members and would-be members of our fields. These barriers are varied, often overlapping, and include, but are not limited to: gender identity; sexuality; socio-economic status; language; disability; and race. Polar research is poised to benefit from a tremendous diversity of ideas and approaches if we as a community can fully commit ourselves to understanding and addressing overlapping, interconnected barriers to equality and progress in polar research.</jats:p

Dynamics of epilithic algal community in the Geum river, Korea

pecies composition and standing crops of epilithic algae were investigated at six stations in the Geum River in 1999. A total of 160 species (49 Chlorophyceae, 5 Euglenophyceae, 92 Chrysophyceae, and 14 Cyanophyceae) was identified. The standing crops of epilithic algal species ranged 17.3-776.1×10 supper(3) cells·mm supper(-2), and averaged 227.2×10 supper(3) cells·mm supper(-2). The minimum standing crops of epilithic algae was recorded in July (averaged 105.5×10 supper(3) cells·mm supper(-2)) and the maximum in November (322.0×10 supper(3) cells·mm supper(-2)). Diatoms significantly contributed to the proportion of standing crops during the investigated period. Among 17 dominant species in standing crops, Aulacoseira granulata, Cyclotella meneghiniana, Melosira varians, Navicula pupla, Nitzschia palea, Oscillatoria tenuis, Scenedesmum quadricauda, and Synedra ulna have been known as typical algal indicators for organic pollution of water. The species diversity index(H') of epilithic algal community showed the minimum in September as 1.56 and the maximum in November as 2.11.open