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There des dernieres explorationspolaires furent des aventures hyper-masculines, fortement liées a l'expansion imperialiste. Les Occidentales furent exclues des pôles qui étaient devenues des spheres exclusivement masculines. Cecily Shackleton , la fille de Sir Ernest Schackleton. eminent explorateur de lAntarctique nous a fourni un bel exemple de la pratique du don chez les femmes des regions polaires. ĽUniversité dOxford avait subventionné son expedition dans ľ île Ellsmere en 1934-35 et son travail bénévole comprenait la logistique, l'organisation et l'émotivité; le fait quelle n ait jamais été reconnue montre bien que l'inégalité regne dans le prestigieux monde de l"exploration en région polaire.
Behind these dreams of the polar expeditions is a frieze or backdrop ofwomen-no, ladies-who stood elegantly about in their drooping fettered garments, smiling wistfully at these warriors of theirs....
-Doris Lessing, The Making of the Representation for Planet 8 (132) (quoted in Rosner 493)
Gift giving cannot be understood without reference to other behaviours; it can be an expression of social relationships (Befu), an exchange with visible outcomes, such as prestige and respect (Heath), an enactment of power dynamics (Bracken), and, especially for this paper, the playing out of women's political inequality (Raymond) in a social and economic system that circumscribes their participation. Here I posit western women's work in polar exploration expeditions as gift giving, shaped by cultural imperatives or dictates in the late polar exploration era, the 1930s. This work took logistical, organizational, and emotional forms and was carried out by the middle and upper class female relatives ofWestern, mainly British and Norwegian, polar explorers whose expeditions were aimed at advancing European empires and accumulating prestige (Hanrahan Unchained Man). (Note that the contributions of Indigenous women to polar exploration are beyond my purview here.)1 I use the example of Cecily Shackleton of the famous and influential Shackleton family of polar explorers. Cecily carried out extensive unpaid work on her brother Edward Shackleton's Oxford University Ellesmere Land (ouel) Expedition of1934-1935. This article is based on archival documents housed at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, consisting mainly of Shackleton family correspondence and related material such as Cecily's school records and ouel Expedition documents. A study ofCecily's labour in the hyper-masculine world ofexploration (Hanrahan Unchained Man; Rosner; Farley) can provide an understanding ofpolar women's...