Concept information
Preferred term
HIST-IPY
Definition
- Short Title: History of the IPYs (HotIs) Project URL: http://www.polarjahr.de/Hist-IPY.124+M54a708de802.0.html Proposal URL: http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=27 The aim of this project is to study to what degree was research in the Arctic and Antarctic during the polar years primarily driven by scientific criteria. To what extent were compromises made in the light of political barriers and logistical limitations? Another aspect is the role of new technologies, which is highlightened by the start of the first satellites and which has a significant input both in polar transport and research. Employing historical perspectives we will review essential background factors at work in the three distinct periods (both scientific and non-scientific), when nations chose to participate in the IPYs. In addition, we will consider the substantial factors that led certain major nations to choose not to contribute to the Polar Years (Great Britain 1882/83, Germany 1932/33, 1957/58, etc). Traditionally, field science practiced in remote geographical regions was either a by-product of exploration or an activity exploited by territorial claimants. The early attempts to establish an international polar organization will be seen as a backdrop to the later success in creating the Scientific Committee on Arctic Research (SCAR). Pertinent in this respect are the different roles played by non-governmental organizations as distinct from intergovernmental organizations or modes of international organization. Factors that enabled (or contrained or hindered) the institutionalisation of polar research more broadly under the auspices of the polar years will be studied also with an eye to drawing lessons for the future. The political role of the Antarctic treaty and the role of science in it is of course an important question in this context, as Antarctica at the political level became constructed as a continent by and for science (and peace). It is important to include the use of oral history, while some IGY veterans and constructors of the Antarctic treaty are still living.Such a study would not be complete without examining the impact of the Cold War on the IGY. Recent historical work has indicated that the IGY was simultaneously a crucial instance of international scientific co-operation at the height of political tensions between the Eastern and Western Blocs, but also an activity tightly integrated into the national security aims of major participant-states, including the United States and the Soviet Union. How Cold War tensions affected the practice of science during the IGY, and what lessons contemporary science planners and policy-makers can gain from a better understanding of the IGY's achievements and disappointments, are important anticipated outcomes from this project. (en)
Broader concept
- G - I (en)
URI
https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/902e533c-1c52-4932-b7ec-ad5027893d00
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