Lecture by Madeleine Herren in Haryana, India

"Decolonizing Epistemologies at 90° 0′ N ..?: European Global Studies through the lenses of a global rescue mission"

On May 25 1928, the Italian General Umberto Nobile sent a radio message to the Pope, to Mussolini and to the king of Italy to announce that he had successfully crossed the North Pole with his air ship called “Italia”. Only a few hours later, the regular radio transmissions of the air ship's position suddenly stopped because the ship had collided with an ice floe. From the very moment that radio stations around the world received the SOS message from the surviving crew members, a number of globally connected rescue activities were started, all the time closely observed by the media around the globe.

The Nobile tragedy serves as an example to specify my main approach suggesting a discussion about different forms of connections which overstep linear chronologies and spatial orders generated by territorial acquisition. In the example chosen the North Pole turned into a “rescue scape” that attracted a global public and introduced new, environment-related questions. I argue that the arctic became the trigger for a new perception of the globe beyond established forms of claiming territories, with far reaching consequences that include today's controversies about global warming and access to raw materials.

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