‘There is a fine line between acknowledging the extent and seriousness of the troubles and succumbing to abstract futurism and its effects of sublime despair and its politics of sublime indifference.’[1]

Marine ecosystems are governed by circulations. From the currents which transport nutrients across the globe to the more-than-human species responsible for maintaining oceanic food chains, any disruption to these millennia-old cycles can precipitate ecological collapse. Yet, as a result of the Antarctic commercial whaling industry during the twentieth century, this is precisely what happened to cetaceans and their co-dependent aquatic worlds. Whaling has taken many forms over the past thousand years, from local subsistence whale hunting in the eleventh century to industrial pelagic whaling at the end of the nineteenth century. However, following the invention of the exploding harpoon by Svend Foyn in 1870 and the erection of land stations across the Antarctic continent, the whaling landscape monumentally shifted, and cetaceans risked total annihilation at a genocidal scale. When the northern waters of the Atlantic and Arctic became depleted, attention shifted south, to Antarctica, where millions of whales spend the summer feeding before migrating to warmer climates to breed. 

The Antarctic commercial whaling industry decimated cetacean populations across the Southern Ocean, with scientists estimating ‘that nearly 2.9 million large whales were killed and processed during the period 1900–99. Of this total … 2,053,956 [were killed] in the Southern Hemisphere.’ [2] Within this figure, we can estimate that over half a million whales were processed at the Hektor Whaling Station on Deception Island. [3] Alongside the decimation of cetacean pods, the main food group of countless polar species – Antarctic Krill – was dramatically depleted due to the sudden scarcity of whale excrement which had once fertilised the waters of the Southern Ocean and sustained the Krill. Here, the power of ecological circulations and entanglements in maintaining an aquatic equilibrium are painfully evident. Amid the escalating planetary crisis, understanding how anthropogenic actions unravel ecosystems is crucial for the prevention of future interspecies genocide. 

Without the development of the modern whaling station, however, this oceanic genocide would not have been possible. While the invention of the exploding harpoon in 1870 revolutionised the number of cetaceans factory ships were able to catch, the development of mass aquatic abattoirs across the Antarctic peninsula sustained the burgeoning industry, ensuring its profitability and commercial success. Prior to the erection of whaling stations across Antarctica, whalers were forced to conduct their operations from factory ships with limited processing space for more than two to three whales. This meant that any additional whales were often rendered abject, left to decay in the waters in which they were captured. Upon the arrival of materials to build whalers accommodation, large copper boilers for the melting of whale blubber into oil, and ports from which to moor whaling ships, the industry boomed, and whaling became one of the most profitable industries on the planet. Across the Antarctic continent, several whaling stations were erected by British, Norwegian, Chilean and Argentinian whaling companies; however, very little research has been conducted into the role of such necropolitical architecture in advancing the industry. While numerous architectural histories focus on abattoirs and other material sites of interspecies violence and extermination[4] across the world, there is little evidence of any architectural histories pertaining to Antarctic whaling stations. Therefore, this dissertation aims to occupy this space, depicting the Hektor Whaling Station on Deception Island as a material example of interspecies oceanic colonialism.

I began developing the theory of interspecies oceanic colonialism within a previous piece of work focused on the whaling station ruins of the Shetland Islands in Scotland. [5] The framework seeks to move beyond the human and land-based boundaries of traditional definitions of colonialism, instead foregrounding the terms ‘interspecies’ and ‘oceanic’ as lenses through which to view the oppression and subjugation of more-than-human species by human actors at sea, as well as on land. More specifically, interspecies oceanic colonialism involves the domination and exploitation of marine species through methods such as occupying aquatic and terrestrial environments, acts of violence against more-than-human species by human actors, and engaging in practices of extractivism which are tantamount to genocide. An interspecies approach is inclusive of the impact of humans upon more-than-human species, moving beyond anthropocentric histories. Similarly, an oceanic perspective serves to broaden generally accepted terracentric understandings of colonialism, seeking to include acts of colonial violence, extractivism and occupation which occur within the aquatic realm. The whaling station ruins on Deception Island, this dissertation argues, serve as one of the clearest material examples of interspecies oceanic colonialism in the Antarctic. 

Due to the perilous and expensive nature of Antarctic travel, along with the damaging environmental impacts of tourism in the region, I was not able to visit Deception Island to undertake a first-hand spatial analysis of the former whaling station site. I was, however, able to make a trip to the former ‘the center of international whaling’,[6] Sandefjord in southern Norway. Having gleaned from Dibbern’s commercial history of Deception Island that, at its height, ‘The concentration of whaling activity at Deception was so dense that the anchorage also gained the nickname of “New Sandefjord”’, I travelled to the town to gain a first-hand perspective on the extent of whaling activity once undertaken and overseen from its shores. The history of the twentieth century whaling industry is memorialised in architectural and artistic iconography throughout the town, with sculptures, museums and memorabilia at every turn. Comparing the whaling operations at Deception Island to those of Sandefjord, therefore, brings to life the extent of the architectural apparatus erected on Deception Island during the early twentieth century. In occupying Deception Island’s terrestrial space through the Hektor Whaling Station and using it as a base from which to exploit the surrounding marine ecosystems, human actors were able to engage in violence, extractivism and genocide against cetacean populations, leading to the site becoming exemplary of interspecies oceanic colonialism and paving the way for the decimation of cetacean species. 

This dissertation seeks to delve into and examine the entangled stories of interspecies oceanic colonialism on Deception Island throughout the past one hundred years, with the ambition of warning against future acts of anthropogenic violence and the dangerous attitudes of human exceptionalism. Beginning with the history of the Hektor Whaling Station on Deception Island, I will construct an architectural history of the site through a critique of terra- and anthropo-centric definitions of colonialism. Following this, this dissertation will develop the theoretical framework for interspecies oceanic colonialism, using the Hektor Whaling Station as an archetypal site of anthropogenic violence. The theory will also be constructed through a critique of Raphäel Lemkin’s 1944 definition of genocide, arguing that the ensuing Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide serves to exclude more-than-human species from legal protection against acts of slaughter. This will be exemplified through an analysis of the practices carried out by Antarctic whalers on Deception Island during the early twentieth century. Violence, territorial occupation and extractivism sit at the heart of the theory of interspecies oceanic colonialism, with the Hektor Whaling Station offering illustrative material examples of each of these necropolitical acts. Building upon Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics, this dissertation will extend his theoretical framework in order to move beyond the original concept’s terra- and anthropo-centric limitations. I will also draw upon theories of extractive capitalism and Donna Haraway’s notion of the Chthulucene later in this dissertation to bring the concept of interspecies oceanic colonialism into the present day. This approach seeks to shed light on the long-term exploitation of cetaceans and other marine life by humans in the Antarctic. Ultimately, this dissertation aims to develop an interspecies architectural history of the Hektor Whaling Station, arguing that acts of genocidal colonialism and extractivism do not belong merely in the realm of interhuman violence. Rather, by developing an understanding of the multispecies entanglements which underpin the very existence and continuation of our planet, we can ensure that more-than-human species are granted the legal and ideological protection they deserve in a time of planetary crisis.