“The Rigours of an Arctic Experimentâ€: The Precarious Authority of Field Practices in the Canadian High Arctic, 1958–1970

Richard C Powell
Additional contact information
Richard C Powell: School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, England

Environment and Planning A, 2007, vol. 39, issue 8, 1794-1811

Abstract: The author examines the development of the notion of the field experiment in High Arctic environmental sciences during the period 1958–70. After a discussion of the philosophy and sociology of experiment, the author considers a set of field practices conducted under the auspices of the Canadian Government's Polar Continental Shelf Project. Drawing on archival and oral historical research, he argues that field scientists had to deal with a number of logistical, corporeal, and epistemic difficulties in the High Arctic. It is demonstrated that these obstacles hindered attempts to develop a scientific literature based upon experimental practices during fieldwork. In doing so, the author attempts to set new agendas for historical geographers of science around the analysis of the geographical sciences, whilst also contributing to discussions about the epistemic status of variegated field practices.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a38294 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:39:y:2007:i:8:p:1794-1811

DOI: 10.1068/a38294

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().