Paper short abstract:

In the era of the Anthropocene, the impacts of anthropogenic climate change have become inseparable from many narratives, understandings and experiences of the Antarctic.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropogenic climate change is one of the most significant issues facing our planet and therefore the many ways in which climate change knowledges are produced play an increasingly important role in generating understandings and preparing for possible futures. Antarctic research is filled with multifarious uncertainties operating across place, time and scale. In Antarctica, an ideal of science-based policy operates within the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) that O'Reilly (2017) refers to as an 'epistemic technocracy' where specialised and expert knowledges are fed into governance decisions. Antarctica is shaped and situated through numerous knowledge practices, epistemologies and ontologies. The rhetoric of Antarctica as set aside for 'peace and science' justifies human presence on the ice and continues to influence research directions today where science is used as 'symbolic capital' (Elzinga, 2017). Historical and geopolitical contexts of the Antarctic further enable and disable knowledge production. This paper explores the materialities of Antarctic research both in- and ex-situ from the continent through the narratives, perceptions and experiences of numerous Antarctic researchers in a changing climate.