Though whaling has existed since ancient and prehistoric times, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries it experienced its rise, height, and decline as a commercial industry. As a facilitator of transnational maritime networks, the introduction of new whaling technology in the late nineteenth century altered hunting methods that led to the modernisation of whaling, eventually reducing the reliance that national whaling companies had previously had on Inuit and other indigenous communities.[1]
For my project I propose a closer in-depth exploration of the people within the industry – the whalers themselves, their wives and families, others who played a role in making the industry function – and the concept of identity that was formed and associated with them. Current scholarship on the history of whaling is overwhelmingly economic in focus, and while I agree that the history of whaling would be incomplete without these numbers, I believe that it is a disservice to the whalers to restrict their legacy to one of economic statistics.
Utilising Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of ‘contact zones’, “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination,” I intend to argue that a transnational history of whaling does exist, and that by exploring the concept of identity and gender roles within the industry in the nineteenth century, we gain a better understanding of the significance of the industry’s connection to global ideologies such as imperialism and colonisation.[2]
I propose the investigation into three contact zones: Nantucket, Greenland, and the South Pacific islands.[3] Specifically, I will analyse the relationships between Nantucket whalers and Native Americans, whalers in Greenland and Inuit communities, and whalers in the South Pacific and Pacific island communities. Deriving off information gathered from my historiographical essay, I hypothesise that in each of these locations unique relationships between the whalers and the local populations manifested themselves, resulting in the generation of cross-cultural melting pots where transnational identities were created. Further examination into how gender influenced these relationships will assist in filling the identity/gender-gap that exists in the historiography of whaling, and will lead to a better understanding of the conception of the whaler as a unique figure, and the role of women in the enforcing or challenging these conceptions.
The main overarching questions I would like to answer with this project are as follows:
- Is there a transnational history of whaling?
- How can the implementation of a transnational perspective on the whaling industries help us to better understand themes in the nineteenth century?
I hope also to address the following:
- How are whalers represented
in historiography and literature? [4]
- How are women represented? Native Americans? Inuits?
- Are there local and global narratives from whaling communities that can be reconstructed? If so, what can these narratives tell us about transnational actors, approaches, and the world that they lived in? Why do they matter?[5]
- In what ways do whalers and their communities serve as transnational actors?
- How are whaling communities contact zones?
I hope to utilise archival material (logs, letters,
journals), secondary historiography, and literature to assist in creating the
narrative of whalers, lesser-known actors, and their communities, moving
away from the statistical narrative that already exists. However, I expect acquiring
some of these sources may present a challenge.
[1] J. N. Tønnessen, and A. O. Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling, trans. R. I. Christopherson (London, 1982), pp. 3, 6-7.
[2] Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London, 1992), p. 5.
[3] Greenland as a contact zone may be subject to change later if there is not a suitable amount of scholarly literature to research. I may expand it to Greenland and Alaska, or just Alaska. I am also considering Dundee, as there might be greater potential for a gender perspective, but this depends on whether or not the other contact zones chosen provide enough material.
[4] Such as in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick or, the Whale (originally published 1851).
[5] These questions were inspired by Martha Hodes, ‘A Story with an Argument: Writing the Transnational Life of a Sea Captain’s Wife’, in Desley Deacon, Penny Russell, and Angela Woollacott (eds.), Transnational Lives: Biographies of Global Modernity 1700-present (London, 2010), pp. 18-19.