Scrambled Signal: A Review of a New Critical Encyclopaedia of the Arctic and Antarctic
Dodds, K. and Nuttall, M. 2016. Scramble for the Poles: The Geopolitics of the Arctic and Antarctica. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Prompted by a “scramble” discourse emanating from both academic and popular literature, Dodds and Nuttall write to dispel the construction of the Arctic and Antarctic as empty frontiers across which contests of sovereignty are held to secure material and political resources. The authors self-consciously invoke a dramatic vocabulary in their title as a means to infiltrate such discourse and are quick to unfold their stowaway thesis. They assert that, far from a resource frontier singularity, the Arctic and the Antarctic are regions characterized by a heterogeneity of lived experiences and ambitions that are metaphorically reflective of the “emergent” nature of the physical landscape and shifting sea ice. It is both this cumbersome plurality and the attempt by distant actors to impose a specific narrative that result in a scrambling of signal when imagining the Arctic and Antarctic Regions.
Scramble for the Poles presents a list of dynamic verbs to thematically frame the content of the book: globalization; securitization; legalization; polarization; perturbation; and amplification. A more concise list might have served as a better framework. “Amplification” refers mainly to the dominance of positive feedback loops within the physical systems of the Polar Regions. However, the term is stretched to describe popular narratives that exaggerate the importance of banal events in these spaces and does not sympathetically frame the local effects of actions particularly for Arctic Indigenous actors. While “polarization” must be acknowledged as a clever turn of phrase, the term obscures the heterogeneity of actors and actions central to the authors’ argument. Invoking a number of themes in each case study, the book is organized into topics of militarization, governance, resource extraction, and globalization. The relations between each study are duly noted, however the variegation of material defies a logical flow and the reader pursues the narrative down a recursive network of back alleys. Though disorienting, this form highlights the scrambled nature of the lived realities of the Arctic and Antarctic.
Part of the reason for this packed avenue of actors and actions is the insistence on a “volumetric” and “topological” geometric conceptualization of the regions. Volumetric, implies an extra dimension to the habitual cartographic products used to visualize (and produce) space. The authors contest the deserted planes/plains of the transport or sovereignty surface version of the region with a construction that implicates sea depths, atmospheric heights, and most notably, flows. Dodds and Nuttall present a topological Arctic or Antarctic as a space understood by connections, vectors, and movements. While the volumetric arctic is sufficiently conveyed through the layering of objects and processes, the authors only verge on resolving topologies as the focus of study. The topological connections are examined through the lenses of each actor-event configuration, the conceptual gradient flowing from concrete to abstract. Nevertheless, the authors use the tension between a discretely imagined and emergently realized Arctic and Antarctic to make the case for a complex method of geometric inquiry for regions. One that holds significant analytical power for geopolitics.
Notably, the material focuses heavily on the Arctic, with the Antarctic mainly serving as a useful counterpoint. The two regions are significantly distinct, and the authors seek to highlight their difference against the common geographical imagining that draws apocryphal comparisons between the poles. Their juxtaposition is extremely valuable in analyzing the construction of remote regions as a discourse-oriented pursuit. The book focuses heavily on imaginaries and discourse. While clearly intended for an academic audience, the book falls into the esoteric realm of cultural studies where narratives and ideas figure prominently while material events, objects, and spaces are exhibited as inert observational evidence.
The book samples Polar imaginaries from popular culture including references to Icelandic nationalist literature, John Carpenter’s horror film “The Thing,” and the brand of scientific journalism that proves indistinguishable from techno-military fantasy. Much like the over-simplification of the popular narrative, the scientific knowledge production systems that make the far North and the far South legible depend on reductionism. That politically-directed scientific knowledge production serves as the source material for both pragmatic geopolitics and sensationalized popular imaginings is only lightly discussed.
It is within the chapter explicitly treating resources where the reader may find a comprehensive treatment of actors, events, and themes within each study. This is perhaps because the resource dimension is where the most work must be done to critique dominant Polar narratives. Layers of governance where sub-national administrations exercise territorial sovereignties extend to resources at depth. In the same breath, the authors attempt to characterize these very regional (and often de facto indigenous) governments as surprise appearances disrupting traditional frontier-speak. Contrary to the resource-frontier paradigm, these actors are conveyors of development, and their inclusion and participation is crucial to the success of any Arctic project. It is especially clear in the resources chapter that the book’s dual ambitions to critique resource-race narratives and construct a new counter-narrative often make for a jumbled argument. It is difficult to delineate where critique ends and constructed narrative begins. However, this new encyclopaedia of the scrambled Polar Regions presents a formidable reference manual for the complex nature of the Arctic and Antarctic. One that demands frequent re-visit.
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