ABSTRACT
With a total area of about 5.5 million square miles, Antarctica is far larger than India and China put together. During the late nineteenth century Antarctica was subjected to a predominantly state-centric and power-political geopolitics, based on the premise that territory and territorial control necessarily implied more power, prestige and security (Chaturvedi, 1996). Thereafter, and particularly from the International Geophysical Year (IGY 1957-58), permanent scientific stations were established and seasonal marine mammal harvesting continued. But it was not until the late 1970s that the dominant representation of Antarctica as the ‘Continent of Science and Peace’ was challenged by significant modern commercial interests. From this period (marked by resource geopolitics and diplomacy) onwards, Antarctica has been increasingly integrated into global systems and highly capitalized actors and forces of the globalized economy have arrived on the scene.
