Heroic Networks: Museum Objects and the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic Exploration

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Things and the Global Antarctica", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Popular interest in figures like Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton can mean that museum collections relating to the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration (broadly categorised as the late 19th – early 20th century) risk representing explorers as working alone to achieve heroic feats. In reality, Scott and Shackleton’s expeditions drew on knowledge, equipment and influence from a vast network of actors. This network of influential actors also extends into modern museum practice, with the collection, conservation, exhibition and interpretation of Heroic Age objects continuing to shape the way that these explorers are seen and understood. Through tracing detailed biographies of museum objects, this paper highlights the varied and diverse cast of actors who enabled these Antarctic expeditions in the first place, and who continue to influence their popularity today. This paper calls for greater nuance in the representation of the ‘heroes’ of the Heroic Age.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Things and the Global Antarctica   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

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Contact(s): Nicole Haddow