No man's land, everyone's land. Unity and nature in the cultural figures of the Antarctic Peninsula and surroundings

Abstract

This paper studies the history of the Antarctic territory disputed by Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom in the context of the processes that culminated in the recent “Edenic” resignification of the white continent: the attribution of positive cultural values to its condition of pristine space, the consequent withdrawal of commercial exploitation activities, the promotion of its preservation and the minimization of any impact. Being a “shared” place links its history to various processes of incorporation into collective imaginaries and national territories with different yearnings moving each country in the framework of actions, reactions, and territorial meanings this paper try to delve into. Regarding a morphological dimension, it is suggested that the wishes of each one was strengthened by integration projects, linked to international competition scenarios, and associated with notions of territorial unity, mostly catalysed by critical historic moments. Regarding its symbolic dimension, it is suggested that territorial cultural values depend on how Antarctic nature has been conceived in different visions of his future that were basically structured in two aspects. One of these is related to the understanding of its pristine status, perceived as a source of resources to extract or "Eden" to preserve. Another relates to those who should benefit from it, whether national, international, or global communities. These approaches allow delving into the different stages of the incorporation processes through architecture projects, infrastructure, geopolitical strategies, and cartographies or even novels and photographs. Trying to overcome the paradigm of a conceptual separation between transformations of the land and its representations, these are understood as “figures”, cultural manifestations and fragments of discourses underlying the incorporation dynamics: different kind of elements that can be transversally read through the notions of unity and meanings of nature they support.