Cultural Emergence and Health in Antarctica

University Of Rochester, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

Dye 0125893 The development of the Antarctica has expanded beyond the initial population of scientists and military personnel to include other support staff (e.g., construction, food service, housekeeping and sanitation personnel) without an explicit scientific or military mission. Experts speculate that as space populations develop, a similar mix of residents may emerge. Such organizational and cultural merging in restricted living environments undoubtedly creates new cultural landscapes (ethnoscapes) that can influence health and health behavior. In addition, because of the extreme environmental conditions in Antarctica, health risks and health care are particularly important in this new cultural context. The specific aims of this project are to 1) model the emergence of cultural stages in isolated confined environmental (ICE) ethnoscapes as experienced through work, recreation, and daily living in Antarctica, 2) identify those elements of ICE ethnoscapes that are specific to an individual season on the ice and those elements which are repeated across seasons, 3) relate how the temporal and content stages of ICE ethnoscapes interact with risk, behavior, and injury, and 4) demonstrate the utility of electronic and distance-based assisted ethnography in conducting social research in ICE environments of Antarctica. These aims will be accomplished with a pre-deployment qualitative phase of interviews and focus groups with individuals who have spent at least one season in Antarctica within the past three years. The second phase will be on-ice with the project team residing in Antarctica for an extended period to conduct on-site observation and interviews with Antarctic residents. This research could contribute to the development of context-sensitive explanatory models of culture and injury risk, screening procedures for long term residence in isolated confined environments, and the methods of their derivation remotely. The study of cultural emergence in Antarctica as an analog to space could prove useful in the development of models of health and health behavior in an isolated confined environmental (ICE) context.