‘Time and space cannot really sunder us’: Accessing emotional Antarctic histories through remote sensing

In light of the continuing development of remote sensing technologies and their place within Antarctic research, this article demonstrates how remote sensing can be used to open up new perspectives on Antarctica’s past, as well as raising questions as to what it means to experience, access, or understand Antarctica – what it means, and has meant, to ‘go there’. Using three case studies from the early 20th century, I show how the wives of Antarctic explorers adapted remote sensing techniques such as the use of telepathy, dreaming, touchstones and constructed feelings of closeness to maintain emotional connections with their husbands throughout their absence. These connections both reassured these women of their husband’s wellbeing, and enabled them to access Antarctica and create their own imaginaries, experiences and understandings of the continent. By examining how these women used their remotely sensed knowledge in their efforts to preserve their late husband’s legacy, I also reflect on how those researching emotional histories also engage in a form of remote sensing – of looking to the archives in hopes of accessing a deeper understanding of their subject’s emotional worlds from an unnavigable distance. I argue that remote sensing, when used in this way, offers us fresh insights into what it means to have accessed or experienced Antarctica; the fundamental role of emotional connection within the events and writing of Antarctic histories; and the legacy of remote sensing and women’s work found in the literature that underpins the Antarctic historical canon that we work from today.