Other Everests symposium
The Other Everests: Commemoration, Memory and Meaning and the British Everest Expedition Centenaries, 2021-2024 was held at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), London, on 5-6 July 2022.
Programme available below.
Programme available below.
| other_everests_programme_v9_final.docx |
Videos about the symposium
'Other Everests in the RGS Archives' reveals a key moment from the symposium as network members took the opportunity to visit the RGS Archives and view items relating to the early Everest expeditions.
'Hidden histories of High-Altitude Indigenous Labour on Everest' (below) provides a brief overview of one of the aims of the AHRC-funded Other Everests project that details the importance of archives in addressing the micro-histories of indigenous groups that took part in the early expeditions.
Keynote lectures from the symposium
Keynote Lecture:
'The Whiteness of Mount Everest', Prof. Peter H. Hansen, International and Global Studies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA.
In 2022, the “Full Circle Everest Expedition” aimed to scale the mountain to become the “first all-black and brown expedition to the highest place on earth.” The whiteness of Mount Everest has been a distinctive feature of the peak from its naming in the nineteenth century through the many climbing expeditions in the twentieth century. This presentation reviews this longer history of whiteness on Mount Everest as its summit became a height of white masculinity for climbers from the Global North. More recent controversies over the commercialization of Everest, the increasing prominence of Sherpas and Nepalis on the mountain, and the growing diversity among climbers from the Global South and the Global North remain entangled in this history as they demonstrate the limits as well as the potential of possible projects on the mountain.
'The Whiteness of Mount Everest', Prof. Peter H. Hansen, International and Global Studies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA.
In 2022, the “Full Circle Everest Expedition” aimed to scale the mountain to become the “first all-black and brown expedition to the highest place on earth.” The whiteness of Mount Everest has been a distinctive feature of the peak from its naming in the nineteenth century through the many climbing expeditions in the twentieth century. This presentation reviews this longer history of whiteness on Mount Everest as its summit became a height of white masculinity for climbers from the Global North. More recent controversies over the commercialization of Everest, the increasing prominence of Sherpas and Nepalis on the mountain, and the growing diversity among climbers from the Global South and the Global North remain entangled in this history as they demonstrate the limits as well as the potential of possible projects on the mountain.
Keynote lecture:
'Connecting 'hidden' Himalayas and high-altitude circulatory labour histories' Prof. Jayeeta Sharma, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Toronto, Canada.
This talk connects disparate archives on the Eastern Himalayas to historicize how footloose, labouring children, men, and women constituted the embodied, yet the ‘hidden’ in plain-sight infrastructure of mountain empire. It explores how raced and nation-focused typologies of the imperial and post-colonial eras influenced the silo-ing and silencing of such histories within the narrow limits of disciplinary sub-fields. Finally, it considers what multi-species approaches and multi-sited dissemination strategies might entail for historians of the Anthropocene who seek to consider how to decentre and decolonize knowledge practices beyond Everest.
'Connecting 'hidden' Himalayas and high-altitude circulatory labour histories' Prof. Jayeeta Sharma, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Toronto, Canada.
This talk connects disparate archives on the Eastern Himalayas to historicize how footloose, labouring children, men, and women constituted the embodied, yet the ‘hidden’ in plain-sight infrastructure of mountain empire. It explores how raced and nation-focused typologies of the imperial and post-colonial eras influenced the silo-ing and silencing of such histories within the narrow limits of disciplinary sub-fields. Finally, it considers what multi-species approaches and multi-sited dissemination strategies might entail for historians of the Anthropocene who seek to consider how to decentre and decolonize knowledge practices beyond Everest.
