Antarctica - The Continent of the Future
Wednesday, 15 April 2026
11:00 - 15:30
STIAS, Boardroom
Abstract
Antarctica is a continent of the future. With no indigenous population to tie its icy expanses to a deep history, Antarctica is truly about imagining what is to come. The early explorers who nearly wiped out whale and seal populations in the 1800s believed in a future of limitless industrial growth in their imperialist world, in which animals were reduced to floating oil barrels, inconveniently packed in fur, to be promptly turned into oil for the empire’s machines. The early scientific explorers imagined futures of rational, scientific control of the Earth’s furthest resource frontiers. Today, the decay of the sites they left behind tells us of the global futures slowly chipping away before our eyes.
Biography
Kati Lindstrom is a scholar in the environmental humanities whose work explores how personal experience and cultural narratives shape perceptions and management of natural and cultural heritage. Trained at the University of Kyoto and the University of Tartu, Kati Lindstrom holds a docent degree (2021) in the History of Science, Technology and Environment from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, where they serve as Director of Doctoral Studies in the Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment and are a member of the division’s steering group. Their interdisciplinary research—drawing on semiotics, anthropology, environmental history, and geography examines processes of meaning-making, identity formation, and value attribution in landscapes, with case studies in Japan, Antarctica, and Estonia. They are currently involved in projects on heritage and decay in the Anthropocene, including research on Japanese aesthetics of impermanence and the accelerated deterioration of Antarctic heritage under climate change, as well as work within the ERC project NUCLEARWATERS on water and nuclear energy history. Kati Lindstrom also contributes extensively to international scholarly and policy networks related to environmental history and polar heritage, serving in roles with organizations such as the Estonian Academy of Sciences, SCAR, ICOMOS, and the European Society for Environmental History.