Laboratory Metaphors in Antarctic History: From Nature to Space

International audienceThe chapter explores the implications of using laboratory metaphors in connection with the Antarctic setting in order to find out what they can tell us about scientific activities in Antarctica, especially during the Cold War. After a short introduction to the use of metaphors in science, I trace in a more reflexive first part the master metaphor of the Antarctic, the so-called natural laboratory, back to its historical origins and its particular environmental setting: the mountains. In a second part I provide concrete examples of one laboratory vision in particular, the “space laboratory,” which is tightly connected to another laboratory metaphor, the “human laboratory.” Space research and psychological research, I argue, emerged during the Cold War within the Antarctic context mainly because of their immediate relevance for national security and military dominance in “hostile” environmental settings. Indeed, Antarctica, far removed from Cold War rivalries in the Arctic, benefited at the height of the Cold War from the relative remoteness and a less tense geopolitical setting with no indigenous population present. In the concluding remarks I explain how these historical developments are reflected in the use of different laboratory metaphors and why paying close attention to historical trajectories of metaphors may reveal new crucial insights into the nature of scientific research in “extreme” environments, especially within the polar context