ABSTRACT
Antarctica is undeniably different to the rest of the planet. As the driest, coldest, highest, and most remote land on the planet, it is quasi-extraterrestrial in its extreme ecology and lack of sustenance for human life. Despite being anything but lifeless, sterile, or still, as it was often historically constructed, Antarctica’s off-limit condition still entails-as Elena Glasberg observes-that the “status of humanity on Antarctic ice is at once highly assumed and undertheorized” (2012, xxii). Australian environmental historian Tom Griffiths, echoing the words of US nature writer Barry Lopez, once observed that Antarctica is “a place from which to take the measure of the planet” (Griffiths 2008). Griffiths goes on to forewarn that Antarctica is
not only a region of elemental majesty; it is also a global archive, a window on outer space and a scientific laboratory. It is not only a wondrous world of ice; it is also a political frontier, a social microcosm and a humbling human experiment.
