1,720,979 research outputs found
Mountain of Destiny: Kanchenjunga 1929
Full text linkExhibition of photographs from the 1929 German Kanchenjunga Expedition presented to E. O. Shebbeare (private collection) and contemporary paintings of Kanchenjunga by the landscape artist Julian Cooper. Curated by Dr. Jonathan Westaway.
Westaway’s innovative curatorial approaches have helped unlock the hidden histories of high-altitude expeditionary labour, redirecting the historiographic focus of mountaineering history towards the contribution of indigenous agency and selfhood. The exhibition provides audiences with new ways of looking at Himalayan mountaineering history, presenting newly discovered photograph albums to the mountaineering community and broader publics as part of the Kendal Mountain Festival 2018. The exhibition forms part of Westaway’s ongoing examination of imperial governmentality and knowledge-gathering practices in the trans-border regions of British India, particularly the ways in which the political control of space by the imperial security state (Hevia, 2012) implicated all forms of expeditionary representation (travel writing, cartography, photography and film) in colonial surveillance and knowledge networks. Archival photographs are juxtaposed with contemporary paintings of Kanchenjunga by Britain’s foremost painter of mountain landscapes, Julian Cooper.
The exhibition captures a unique ethnographic moment, the photographs on display recording the first encounter between the racially-inflected nationalism of the German mountaineers with the multi-ethnic world of Sikkim, the images registering both the shock of alterity and the enchantment of the encounter with mountain peoples. Uniquely for the period, the photographs of indigenous high-altitude labourers were annotated with the names of the Sherpas by the British transport officer on the expedition (E. O. Shebbeare), enabling us to begin to research the hidden histories of indigenous expeditionary labour (Driver, 2009). A biographical article on Shebbeare linked to the exhibition was published in The Alpine Journal 2018. Exhibition of photographs from the 1929 German Kanchenjunga Expedition presented to E. O. Shebbeare (private collection) and contemporary paintings of Kanchenjunga by the landscape artist Julian Cooper. Curated by Dr. Jonathan Westaway.
Westaway’s innovative curatorial approaches have helped unlock the hidden histories of high-altitude expeditionary labour, redirecting the historiographic focus of mountaineering history towards the contribution of indigenous agency and selfhood. The exhibition provides audiences with new ways of looking at Himalayan mountaineering history, presenting newly discovered photograph albums to the mountaineering community and broader publics as part of the Kendal Mountain Festival 2018. The exhibition forms part of Westaway’s ongoing examination of imperial governmentality and knowledge-gathering practices in the trans-border regions of British India, particularly the ways in which the political control of space by the imperial security state (Hevia, 2012) implicated all forms of expeditionary representation (travel writing, cartography, photography and film) in colonial surveillance and knowledge networks. Archival photographs are juxtaposed with contemporary paintings of Kanchenjunga by Britain’s foremost painter of mountain landscapes, Julian Cooper.
The exhibition captures a unique ethnographic moment, the photographs on display recording the first encounter between the racially-inflected nationalism of the German mountaineers with the multi-ethnic world of Sikkim, the images registering both the shock of alterity and the enchantment of the encounter with mountain peoples. Uniquely for the period, the photographs of indigenous high-altitude labourers were annotated with the names of the Sherpas by the British transport officer on the expedition (E. O. Shebbeare), enabling us to begin to research the hidden histories of indigenous expeditionary labour (Driver, 2009). A biographical article on Shebbeare linked to the exhibition was published in The Alpine Journal 2018.Exhibition of photographs from the 1929 German Kanchenjunga Expedition presented to E. O. Shebbeare (private collection) and contemporary paintings of Kanchenjunga by the landscape artist Julian Cooper. Curated by Dr. Jonathan Westaway.
Westaway’s innovative curatorial approaches have helped unlock the hidden histories of high-altitude expeditionary labour, redirecting the historiographic focus of mountaineering history towards the contribution of indigenous agency and selfhood. The exhibition provides audiences with new ways of looking at Himalayan mountaineering history, presenting newly discovered photograph albums to the mountaineering community and broader publics as part of the Kendal Mountain Festival 2018. The exhibition forms part of Westaway’s ongoing examination of imperial governmentality and knowledge-gathering practices in the trans-border regions of British India, particularly the ways in which the political control of space by the imperial security state (Hevia, 2012) implicated all forms of expeditionary representation (travel writing, cartography, photography and film) in colonial surveillance and knowledge networks. Archival photographs are juxtaposed with contemporary paintings of Kanchenjunga by Britain’s foremost painter of mountain landscapes, Julian Cooper.
The exhibition captures a unique ethnographic moment, the photographs on display recording the first encounter between the racially-inflected nationalism of the German mountaineers with the multi-ethnic world of Sikkim, the images registering both the shock of alterity and the enchantment of the encounter with mountain peoples. Uniquely for the period, the photographs of indigenous high-altitude labourers were annotated with the names of the Sherpas by the British transport officer on the expedition (E. O. Shebbeare), enabling us to begin to research the hidden histories of indigenous expeditionary labour (Driver, 2009). A biographical article on Shebbeare linked to the exhibition was published in The Alpine Journal 2018. Exhibition photographs featured throughout the volume. [See CLoK record http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/23505/
Human Remains: Everest and the Ontological Afterlives of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine
No full textThe philosopher Giorgio Agamben has argued that the ‘human/nonhuman distinction is the conceptual ground for any further ontological elaboration’, (Grieve-Carlson, 179) that humans must distinguish themselves from their environment and other beings before the work of culture can begin. However, objects frequently ‘problematize the boundaries of the human’ (Knutson, 273), never more so than when we encounter human remains in the process of transition from human subject to physical object. The philosopher Daniel Heller-Roazen notes ‘that a corpse is no human being seems obvious, yet it is equally certain that it is no ordinary thing…A human cadaver is neither a person nor not a person. It is a nonperson in a special sense, which requires commentary and elucidation’ (Heller-Roazen,159).
On Everest, the ambiguity of post-mortal personhood is exacerbated by the preservation of human remains in liminal states in the mountain cryosphere. Human remains on Everest enter new ontic states and new spatio-temporal regimes that render these corpses uncanny. They are encountered within the mountain cryosphere as both fixed features in a landscape and as mobile entities in glacial systems. Extreme environments at altitude reduce human agency and disrupt the normal cultural approaches to disposing of human remains. The persistence of these corpses in the cryosphere and their post-mortal (im)mobilities raises important questions about the ways in which fixity and prolongation of bodies in the cryosphere extends and alters the transition of human remains from subject to object.
In September 2024 the partial human remains of the Everest mountaineer Andrew Irvine were discovered on the Central Rongbuk Glacier in Tibet. Comprising of a boot, sock and skeletal human foot, this paper deploys archaeological assemblage theory to interpret these partial human remains as a complex, relational and emergent historical object, an assemblage that operates at multi-scalar levels which is not confined to one geographically delimited space. Critically, ‘an assemblage is a multiplicity, neither exclusively a part nor a whole’ that actively configures and reconfigures under historically contingent processes (Knutson 796-797). Irvine’s human remains form part of an extensive assemblage that includes narratives of mythologization and heroization that constitute his own enduring post-mortal personhood
Other Everests: One mountain, many worlds
Full text linkA hundred years after the tragic 1924 British Everest expedition, this collection explores the wider social and cultural history of the mountain.
Mount Everest looms large in the popular imagination. Since the deaths of mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine in 1924, histories of the mountain have overwhelmingly focused on the mythologies of western male adventure and conquest. But there are many more stories waiting to be told.
Other Everests brings together new voices and perspectives on the historical and cultural significance of Everest in the modern world. The book shines a light on the overlooked role of local people and high-altitude workers, while also revealing the significant contributions women have made to climbing the mountain and writing its history. It explores the depiction of Everest in a range of media and investigates how the forces of nationalism and commercialism have shaped many different 'Everests'.
After years of exploitation, Indigenous people are now reclaiming Mount Everest in the twenty-first century. Other Everests re-examines the past and present of the world's highest peak, presenting an exciting vision of what Everest might become in the future
Introduction
Full text linkFootprints break the surface of the snow, heading towards the summit of Mount Everest. Who made them? For the past century, many people looking at such footprints have imagined a singular heroic figure, certainly male, probably Western, or perhaps a pair of climbers sharing a rope, such as George Mallory and Andrew (Sandy) Irvine in 1924 or Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. The footsteps in the cover photograph of this book lead upwards on the snows of the ‘Hillary Step’, the imposing obstacle below the summit on the Nepali side of Everest, named after one of the pair who together made the first ascent of the world’s highest mountain.
In June 1924, Mallory and Irvine left similar footprints on the northern, Tibetan slopes of Everest that were visible to observers watching through telescopes below. After they disappeared near the summit, Mallory and Irvine were celebrated for embodying the spirit of man. Yet their deaths were not the first on the mountain. Two years before, in 1922, seven porters were killed in an avalanche on the slopes of the North Col. The porters’ names were later added to a memorial for Mallory and Irvine at Everest Base Camp in Tibet, but their contributions remained largely hidden in the Everest expedition archives, overshadowed by the stories of heroic white men.
Since the 1950s, ‘other Everests’ has implied a mountaineering metaphor to elevate the significance of other endeavours. ‘There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men’, Maurice Herzog famously concluded in Annapurna, his account of the first ascent of an 8,000-metre peak in 1950. Echoing Herzog, the leader of the successful 1953 British expedition, Sir John Hunt, thought the ascent of Everest was justified by the ‘seeking of their “Everests” by others’. Hunt concluded ‘the spirit of man’ could overcome any obstacle and the ascent should inspire enterprising explorers, mountaineers, and adventurers in climbing and other pursuits.
Since then, climbers have often followed the footsteps of Sherpas, the ethnic group in Nepal that became the leading porters and guides on Mount Everest. In the 2020s, fresh footprints in the snows of the Hillary Step were being made by Sherpas, both men and women, and the climbers following their footprints are as likely to be from India and China as from Europe or North America. By the first quarter of the twenty-first century, ‘other Everests’ highlights the contributions and perspectives of diverse communities on and beyond the mountain.
Other Everests is the culmination of a UK-funded research network initially concerned with the commemoration of the centenaries of the early British Mount Everest expeditions. The network examined multiple ethical, social, and political challenges raised by Mount Everest, with attention being given to the meaning of historical commemoration, the agency of Indigenous labour, and the evolution of contemporary mountaineering cultures. The earliest British expeditions were linked to a geostrategic ‘forward policy’, including the military invasion of Tibet, which aimed to realign Tibet away from Republican China towards British India. After the First World War, the assault on Everest became a gesture of imperial redemption, an effort to restore British morale and reassert the vitality of an imperial masculinity considered critical to ruling a multiethnic empire. The ‘epic of Everest’ became a metaphor for the expedition organisers and filmmakers who saw Mallory and Irvine embodying the ‘spirit of modern man’. This language persisted into the 1970s, when the global counterculture transformed relations with Sherpas, Junko Tabei became the first of many women to climb Mount Everest, and a new breed of climbers entered the scene who began to replace imperial masculinities with corporate masculinities drawn from transnational business boardrooms. With the advent of commercial guiding services and the discovery of Mallory’s body in the 1990s, older imperial narratives were exhumed and resurrected along with artefacts from the body. Mountaineering narratives still celebrate heroic men conquering mountains in ways that perpetuate racial and gender stereotypes and continue to inform quasi-colonial practices in contemporary Himalayan mountaineering.
Postcolonial scholars examining such stereotypes and practices highlight the role of ‘Othering’, whereby ‘individuals and groups are treated and marked as different and inferior from the dominant social group’. Since the 1920s, Everest expeditions have relied on vast pyramids of Indigenous labour, an embodied infrastructure that was seldom acknowledged, except when identifying Gurkhas or Sherpas as embodying a ‘martial race’ or ‘mountain’ people. While traditional Everest narratives often adopt such colonial perspectives, the ‘Other Everests’ research network attempted to invert and subvert this rhetoric and reintroduce a plurality of perspectives – a world of multiple or alternative Everests.
Other Everests attempts to clear a space to engage the many worlds that share the same mountain, the multiple ways of being-in-the-world, ‘a world where many worlds fit’. This introductory chapter highlights some of these ‘worlds’ and overlapping themes in Everest’s many names, nations, genders, tourists, climates, and stories. Throughout this volume, the international and interdisciplinary array of contributors reactivate old and new archives, engage with multimedia and live performances, and participate in historical or ethnographic fieldwork. They shed light on the different ways of being in relationship with the mountain and how these are navigated by climbers and high-altitude workers alike, from ritual ceremonies to the mountain’s immovable goddess through to contemporary digital practices, as global adventure tourists and guides curate their Everest experiences. The authors in the volume contribute to a plurality of new histories and perspectives. Everest can be viewed as a ‘fallen giant’ or the height of global prestige; a tourist’s quest for adventure or a commodified package in a global adventure tourism industry. Avalanches and natural disasters in the 2010s caused deaths that highlighted risks from a changing climate, but as many of our contributors make clear, these vulnerabilities co-emerged with inequalities in high-altitude labouring practice over the last century. The other Everests presented in this volume have shaped the present but do not determine the future approaches to the world’s highest mountain
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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