Continents in the Mind's Eye: (Mis)Perceptions of Arctic and Antarctic Landscapes.
This paper will examine misperceptions of the Arctic and Antarctic landscapes as cognitive constructs. These misperceptions will be analysed as constructs of two different cultures: European and Aboriginal. It will be argued that the Arctic and Antarctic landscapes have, over the centuries, functioned as a geographical equivalent of a psychological Rorschach test; vast white landscapes upon which we (or rather, white male explorers) have imposed readings that reveal more about ourselves than about the geographic realities of the spaces. In contrast to this, the views of peoples indigenous to the Arctic may be seen as a more valid perception of this forbidding environment. 7 pgs. 13 f/c. 5b.
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