In and Beyond the Visual Gaze of the Tourists: Humanizing Antarctic Wilderness

The objective of this study was to unwrap the Antarctic
tourism imaginary and go beyond the oral-visual narratives
of tourists in order to understand which other senses and
how are activated when touring in Antarctica. What is the
grand master plot at the core of the Antarctic tourism
imaginary? To summarize, most of the visualization of
Antarctica and Antarctic experience rotates around the
theme of “humanized nature”: the penguins are seen as
human-like creatures, the icebergs are spoken about as the
perfect examples of abstract art and whalebones are static
reminders of once prolific whale-hunting industry.
Antarctica is the only land that has no myths of origin but
compensates this with the heroic stories of its first
explorers. In contrast to the “gaze” centered approach to
tourism, Antarctic tourism presents an example of
mutlisensuous, non-ocularcentric geography. Deepest
affectual encounters of tourists come from engaging
various senses: interviewees talked about the powerful
sounds of calving glaciers and meditating brash ice, the
awful smells of penguin and seal colonies, the caresses of
Antarctic wind, of refreshing Polar plunge and thick morning
mist, which concealed the land and upon seeing which
people would start to cry.