
The Global Antarctic
Message from the Convenor
I would like to welcome all Antarctic humanities and social science scholars and stakeholders to the 2021 biennial academic conference of the Standing Committee on Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) under Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). For the first time in its history, the SC-HASS biennial conference comes to Asia, and Kobe University Polar Cooperation Research Centre (PCRC) is proud to host the conference, back-to-back with the 14th Polar Law Symposium (November 21-23) .
Kobe PCRC has decided to hold the conference partially in hybrid format on the first day of the conference, November 18, and the rest will be entirely online with three (3) live stream channels available on the dedicated Online Participant Portal. Please refer to the Participants/Presenters’ Manual for COVID-19 related immigration restrictions as well as preventive measures implemented at the venue. (Updated October 4)
Please refer to the exciting live program as well as the list of pre-recorded presentations. From 10:30 JST on November 18, after the opening, there will be Japan Session with a local keynote featuring “How can Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition contribute to humanities and social science studies”.
I look forward to “seeing" all of you at the venue and through online on 18th and 19th of November.
Convenor, 2021 SCAR SC-HASS biennial conference
Professor and Director, Kobe University PCRC
Akiho SHIBATA
Theme and Events
The Global Antarctic
The conference theme is “The Global Antarctic,” chosen to signify both the global nature of the conference this year – with participants physically located in all parts of the world – and the diversity of connections between Antarctica and people around the globe. As is customary for SC-HASS meetings, we welcome proposals from all geographic and disciplinary perspectives, and from scholars of all career stages.
Highlight of the Event
Lewander Lecture by Professor Cornelia Lüdecke

Keynote Lecturer
Prof. Dr. (em.) Cornelia Lüdecke
University of Hamburg
The founder of the SCAR Action Group on History
The main keynote lecture at each SC-HASS conference honours the memory of Lisbeth Lewander (1956-2012), a pioneering scholar of gender, politics, and history in the Arctic and Antarctic. The Lewander Lecture for 2021 will be given by Professor Cornelia Lüdecke. In addition to serving for many years as Professor of History of Natural Sciences at the University of Hamburg, Cornelia was the founder of the SCAR Action Group on History in 2004, which developed into the SCAR Expert Group in History, and became a forerunner to the current SCAR Standing Committee on Humanities and Social Sciences. Cornelia’s many publications have focused on German activity in both polar regions, the history of Antarctic exploration, and the history of oceanography. Cornelia will use her lecture to reflect on the growth of Antarctic humanities and social sciences in the past twenty years and on the importance of building a research community. The lecture will be broadcast online.
On Demand Viewing
18-1-1040 Japan Session
How can Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition contribute to Humanities and Social Science Studies?

Shin Murakoshi, Shizuoka University
The Antarctic as a Natural Laboratory: A Case of Cognitive Sciences
Yumi Nakayama, The Asahi Shimbun Company
JARE’s first step: Journalist enthusiasm developed into national ebullience
Yoriko Ikuta, Nara Prefectural Seisho High School
Teachers’ dispatch program under JARE and inquiry-based learning
Chair: Akiho Shibata, Kobe University PCRC
by the SC-HASS Chief Officers and through SCAR SC-HASS official website.
18-1-1400
Travel, Tourism, and Antarctic Identity
Chaired by Daniela Liggett
18-1-1530
The ATS in Theory and Practice
Chaired by Adrian Howkins
19-1-0900
The Policy-Law-Science Nexus under the Antarctic Treaty System: Environment and External Accommodation
Chaired by Luis Valentin Ferrada
19-2-1530
Cultural Perceptions of Antarctica during COVID-19
Chaired by Elizabeth Leane
SC-HASS 2021 Official Program
About SC-HASS
Standing Committee on Humanities and Social Sciences
SC-HASS is a community of researchers working on diverse aspects of the humanities and social sciences as they relate to Antarctica. Its membership includes historians, legal scholars, tourism scholars, anthropologists, literature scholars, archaeologists, musicologists, political scientists, and many others. Previous SC-HASS conferences have been held in locations such as Ushuaia (Argentina), Hobart (Australia), Cambridge (UK), Fort Collins (USA), and Stellenbosch (South Africa). A key goal of the Committee is to help strengthen local and regional networks in Antarctic humanities and social sciences. As such, we hope that by meeting in Kobe the Committee will contribute to this growth in Japan and in East Asia, while also providing an important meeting space for scholars at the leading edge of international research.
About the 14th Polar Law Symposium
To interested polar legal and policy scholars
Kobe PCRC will be hosting the 14th Polar Law Symposium also in hybrid format on November 21-23, 2021. Polar Law Symposium is an annual academic gathering of scholars, students, indigenous representatives and practitioners to discuss the international law and policy challenges faced by both the Arctic and the Antarctic. Please do consider submitting an abstract also to the Symposium as well as staying on in Kobe for a few more days if you plan to physically attend the conference.
Registration
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- There is no fee for registration. For provisional program as of November 09, please click here. Please note that there have been changes since the preliminary version sent directly to the presenters from the Conference Secretariat.
- Registration is required for all presenters and general participants in order to access the conference Online Participant Portal and the venue at Kobe University.
- For the first phase of the registration, you will need to enter your personal profile and your participation category: Representative Presenter (see below), Presenter (live or pre-recorded) , Chair and/or General Participant, as well as your expected date of onsite visit to the venue. Please refer to the Participation/Presentation/Chair Manual ver.2.0 for other details.
- A Representative Presenter is the one with an accepted abstract and being the one who received the acceptance notification from the Conference Secretariat. Please refer to the program for the names and the abstract entry number of those Representative Presenters.
- The second phase starting from October 11 will require the Representative Presenters to provide information on the final title of the presentation/panel, co-authors, co-panelists, and/or sub-titles of those panel presentations as applicable. That information will be used for producing an official conference program.
- The third phase starting from November 1 until November 12 is the period to upload all relevant presentation material relating the accepted abstract under the authority of the Representative Presenters. For technical details, please refer to the Manual which will be updated periodically.
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Abstract Submission Portal
Abstract Submission Portal has opened on June 1 and will remain open until August 4.
The Submission Portal has been closed as of GMT 2359 on August 4.Thank you for your submission.
Please ensure that you read the Call for Abstracts before submitting an abstract.
Please use the model abstract format and send it in PDF through the Abstract Submission Portal.
For any inquiry regarding the abstracts,
please contact the Chair of the Academic Planning Committee:
peder.roberts@abe.kth.se
Organization
The Global Antarctic
2021 SCAR SC-HASS Biennial Conference
- Convenor
- Akiho SHIBATA (Kobe PCRC)
Academic Planning Committee
Local Organizing Committee
Inquiry
For inquiries: