Sealers were not born but made. Sensory-Motor Habits, Subjectivities, and Nineteenth-Century Voyages to the South Shetland Islands

MELISA A. SALERNO

Coming to senses. Topics in sensory archaeology

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lugar: Newcastle Upon Tyne; Año: 2015; p. 77 - 104

Sealers were the first people to visit Antarctica; particularly, the South Shetland Islands. One of the most important goals of the international project "Landscapes in White" is to discuss the early history of the archipelago. In this way, the members of the project want to learn more about the people who were silenced by the official narratives of the region. For years, we have taken for granted what it was like to be a sealer. In this chapter, I would like to question this idea, considering the process by which somebody became a particular kind of sailor and hunter. This challenge makes me focus on the figure of the "green hands" (those who entered the trade). Furthermore, it makes me go beyond the South Shetland Islands, including some other scenarios which were also part of the sealing voyages. The analysis considers the ways in which the green hands acquired new habits as part of their sensory-motor engagement with different material contexts. It also considers the ways in which these habits could have shaped specific subjectivities.