High mountains, polar expanses, volcanic peaks are exciting and special environments. 13 leading international geographers explore different aspects of these environments - disorientation, exploration, native knowledge, polar research. This is the first book to do this.High places - be they mountain peaks or the vast expanses of the polar latitudes - have always captured the human imagination. Inaccessible, extreme, they are commonly invested with awe and reverence, as places of physical challenge, intense experience. Increasingly, they are also treated as unique locations for science."High Places" explores the fascinating geographies of these special environments, revealing how senses are challenged, objectivities exposed, cultural assumptions laid bare. Whether walking the summit of Pico de Orizaba, the fourth highest volcano in the northern hemisphere; recounting the tale of the American explorer Charles Wilkes, charged with 'immoral mapping' in Antarctica; or exploring the 200,000 year old Greenland ice core; the international contributors reveal the richness and significance of these unique locations.
Embracing Europe, Asia, North and Central America, Antarctica and the Arctic, "High Places" will interest geographers, historians of science, and those interested in polar/mountain studies, landscape, culture and environment.
1. Introduction: High Places
Denis Cosgrove and Veronica della Dora
Part I: Science and Formal Knowledge in High Places
The Poles
2. Walking in Circles
William Fox (USA - Independent scholar)
3. The Ends of the Earth: Narrating Scott, Amundsen and Antarctica
John Wylie (University of Exeter)
4. Climates of Sight: Mistaken Visibilities, Mirages and 'Seeing Beyond' in Antarctica
Kathryn Yusoff (Open University)
5. Core Matters: Greenland, Denver, and the GISP2 Ice Core
Heather Frazar (Independent scholar)
The Mountains
6. The Mountains between Corporal Experience and Pure Rationality: the Contradictory Theories of Philippe Buache and Alexander von Humboldt
Bernard Debarbieux (Geneva University)
7. Domesticating High Places: Mount Athos, Botanical 'Garden of the Virgin'
Veronica della Dora (University of Bristol)
8. Astronomers at Altitude: Mountain Geography and the Cultivation of Scientific Legitimacy
Maria Lane (University of New Mexico)
Part II: Local Knowledge and Science in High Places
10. Local Populations as Mountain Steward (Valais, Switzerland)
Gilles Rudaz (UC Berkeley)
11. Sea Ice Mapping
Michael Bravo (Scott Polar Institute, Cambridge)
12. Canada Day in Resolute: Performing Ritual and Nation in an Inuit Community
Richard Powell (University of Liverpool)
13. Paektudaegan: Memory, Science, Colonialism and Mapping High Places in Korea
Jin Jong-Heon (University of Seoul)
14. Afterword
Nick Entrikin (UCLA)
