Standing Committee on the Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS)

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The SCAR Standing Committee on the Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) aims to initiate, develop and coordinate rigorous and high quality international research on the Antarctic region within the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS); to provide independent advice to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCMs) on issues requiring disciplinary expertise outside the natural sciences; and to coordinate with existing science groups on issues that call for a multidisciplinary approach.

The humanities and social sciences research community has been part of the SCAR landscape for well over a decade. The History Action Group was formed in 2005 and became the History Expert Group in 2011, while the Social Sciences Action Group was established in 2010 and expanded into the Humanities and Social Sciences Expert Group (HASSEG) in 2014. The Standing Committee on Antarctic Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) was established by the SCAR Delegates in June 2018 to contribute directly and substantially to the challenges of describing and managing human impacts in Antarctica.

The SCAR Horizon Scan identified the need to “recognize and mitigate human impact” as one of six priorities. Specific challenges within this priority include understanding: the impact of human modification of the environment; the way in which changing geopolitical configurations will affect Antarctic governance and science; and how developments in Antarctic tourism will be regulated. Challenges such as these can only be addressed by scientists acting in concert with scholars in the humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, the governance of the Antarctic region includes issues such as tourism, cultural heritage management, and environmental management (including fisheries) that are informed by research in the natural sciences, but which also require input from the humanities and social sciences.

Terms of Reference

Humanities and Social Sciences Meetings and Conferences

SC-HASS meets and organises workshops and conference sessions at SCAR’s biennial Open Science Conferences (OSCs), and holds independent conferences in the intervening years.  For full details, visit the Meetings page.

Joining the Standing Committee on the Humanities and Social Sciences

Researchers with an interest in the Antarctic humanities and social sciences topics are welcome to become members of the SC-HASS and are invited to share their ideas of suitable research projects. Visit the Members page for details.

 

The Standing Committee was formed by merging two Expert Groups – the Humanities and Social Sciences group and the History group:

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A detailed overview of news related to the Humanities and Social Sciences community is available here and through the group’s Facebook page.

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Members

Contact

The Chief Officers of the Standing Committee on the Humanities and Social Sciences are Peder Roberts and Hanne Nielsen. To contact them, please email the SC-HASS Steering Committee.

 

Steering Committee

Assistant Prof Dr Ebru Caymaz Türkiye Science Diplomacy
Dr Cristian Lorenzo Argentina International Relations
Dr Alejandra Mancilla Norway Political Philosophy
Prof Meredith Nash Australia Cultural Sociology
Dr Hanne Nielsen (Chief Officer) Australia Literary and Cultural Studies
Dr Ursula Rack New Zealand History
Dr Peder Roberts (Chief Officer) Norway History
Prof Akiho Shibata Japan Law
Dr Yelena Yermakova Norway Political Philosophy

Membership

SC-HASS welcomes new members. Anyone with a research interest in the Antarctic from a humanities or social science perspective is welcome to join. To apply for membership of the group, please download and complete the SC-HASS membership form and send it, as a Word document, to the SC-HASS Executive. A member of the team will then be in touch. Please note that information provided will be used to create a profile in the SC-HASS Researcher Profile Directory displayed below.

Sign up for the SC-HASS mailing list.

 

Affiliated Researcher Profiles

Below is a directory of SC-HASS affiliated researchers, with information about home institution, research interests, interest keywords, and links to publications. Members welcome further collaboration, so please feel free to get in touch with us to discuss your own Antarctic-related projects. If you are interested in becoming a member, or would like to update the details in your bio, please get in touch!

Affiliated Researchers Profiles

Women in Antarctic Research

Conferences & Meetings

Research by the humanities and social sciences community is becoming increasingly important within Antarctic research. In 2005, a group looking at the history of the institutionalisation of Antarctic research held the first of its annual meetings.  But it wasn’t until the International Polar Year 2007-2008, which included “human dimensions” as a major theme, that social sciences began to emerge within the Antarctic community.  A social sciences group was established in 2010 and became the Humanities and Social Sciences Expert Group (HASSEG) in 2014.  The History Group was granted expert group status in 2011. From 2013, the two groups held joint meetings and conferences. In 2018, the two groups were merged to form the Standing Committee on the Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS).

SC-HASS meets annually, organising workshops and conference sessions at SCAR’s biennial Open Science Conferences (OSCs), and holding independent conferences in the intervening years.

Conferences & Meetings

Resources

Publications, Data and Links of interest to the Humanities and Social Sciences Community

SC-HASS Reports to Delegates and Executive Committee Meetings
SC-HASS Workshop Abstracts and Reports
Research Output Summary
Data
Links

Lewander Lecture

The “Lewander Lecture”, originally presented by the SCAR History Expert Group, is now presented by a historian from SC-HASS. It is given during the SCAR Open Science Conference (SCAR OSC) or during the SC-HASS Conference, in memory of our Swedish friend, Lisbeth Lewander, who passed away in early 2012, and her inspiring work on the history of polar research.

The annual “Lewander Lecture” is chosen by the co-chair of SC-HASS, historian Cornelia Lüdecke, and the co-convenors from the abstracts submitted to SC-HASS history sessions of the biennial SCAR OSCs or to history sessions of the alternate biennial SC-HASS Conferences.

The lecture should demonstrate the value of dealing with polar history from diverse points of view, as well as the importance of sharing ideas and experiences with the next generation of scholars in order to widen involvement in the field. The lecture should be inspiring and deal either with new methods and ideas related to the history of polar research, or with knowledge based on decades of original research.

The Lewander Lecture was conceived in 2012 by Antarctic Polar Early-Career Scientists and Senior Scientists who knew Lisbeth Lewander personally through various conferences and workshops:
Cornelia Lüdecke (Chair SCAR History Expert Group, Germany), Aant Elzinga (Sweden), Adrian Howkins (USA), Pedar Roberts (France), Consuelo Leon Wöppke (Chile) and Lize-Marié van der Watt (South Africa).

List of Lewander Lectures