Diversifying the historical geography of exploration: Subaltern body work on British-led expeditions c.1850–1914

Abstract

Knowledge production on Victorian and Edwardian expeditions depended on the embodied labour of subaltern individuals. Explorers frequently mention such work in their accounts, but they also manage their dependence on others through a variety of rhetorical techniques. I show that focusing on body work can foreground the contributions of subaltern individuals to the history of British geographical exploration. I do so through a critical reading of the published and private accounts of explorers as well as their visual sources. In focusing on these labour practices, this paper offers a new perspective on the historical geographies of exploration, attentive to subaltern contributions. More broadly, the paper encourages geographers to reflect on the embodied and caring labour on which geographical research depends and the devaluation of certain bodies and their labour. These issues are examined through new readings of three otherwise familiar case studies: Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke's Nile expeditions (1856–59 and 1860–63); Isabella Bird Bishop's travels in the Middle East, Japan, China, and Lesser Tibet (1878–1896); and Captain Scott's two Antarctic expeditions (1901–04 and 1911–13).