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17 - A Historical Archaeology of the First Antarctic Labourers (Nineteenth Century)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2023

By
Melisa A. Salerno ,
M. Jimena Cruz  and
Andrés Zarankin
Edited by
Adrian Howkins  and
Peder Roberts
Adrian Howkins
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Peder Roberts
Affiliation:
University of Stavanger
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Summary

The history of commercial sealing and sealers’ lives can be understood within the context of capitalism. Sealing was traditionally carried out by different socio-cultural groups over time, mainly as a low-scale activity that attempted to meet the needs of specific communities (some examples including sealing by hunter-gatherers from Alaska and Tierra del Fuego, among others).1 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, sealing acquired new features within the context of modernity, as it was transformed into a large-scale activity with a trading purpose. Commercial sealing responded to a market logic, and it helped to connect different contexts where the exploitation of resources, the manufacture of products, and trade in raw materials and industrial goods took place.

Keywords

archaeologysealingAntarcticacapitalismlabour historyimperialismempirematerial culture
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions , pp. 407 - 429
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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