Mars Analogue Research in the Canadian Arctic: Using Performance as an “Interscalar Vehicle”

Abstract (English)

My paper considers Mars analogue research stations on Devon Island in Nunavut, Canada. Situated in the High Arctic, around 75° N latitude, analogue research stations, such as the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station and the Haughton Mars Project, offer immersive simulations where the Canadian Arctic becomes a useful proxy for researching Mars itself. I contend that these Mars analogues become what Gabrielle Hecht called “interscalar vehicles” (2018), which can travel through politically nested scales of hierarchy and suture planetarity to locality (Smith, 1992; Carr & Lempert, 2016). I bring scholarly discussion about scale as a “process” (Carr & Lempert, 2016) and a manifestation of “which relationships matter in a particular context” (Liboiron, 2021, p. 84) to bear on Lisa Messeri’s analysis of Mars analogue sites as place making endeavors (2016).

I argue that, in the case of Mars analogue research, performance and performativity are key to these sites becoming “interscalar vehicles.” Indeed, the practice of performing habitation on another planet becomes tied to terrestrial locality, specifically the Canadian Arctic in my analysis. Throughout, my paper will attend to how these interscalar “jumps” (Smith, 1992) are performed, how scale is evoked performatively, and how these performances and performatives become crucial components for knowledge production.

I will conclude my paper by touching on how these considerations of Arctic Mars analogue research stations will contribute to my larger thesis topic on the performance of habitation in Arctic Canada. I will offer a brief comparison to my other research site, Qausuittuq, Nunavut, on nearby Cornwallis Island, offering a very different interscalar performance in Inuit throat singing.