Other Everests: Commemoration, Memory and Meaning and the British Everest Expedition Centenaries, 2021-2024
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Lancashire
Department Name: Sch of Humanities and Social Science
Abstract
Other Everests is a new interdisciplinary research network that takes as its starting point the centenary of the post-war British Everest campaigns of 1921-1924. It will bring together international scholars, archivists, curators, learned and professional societies and the UK mountaineering community to critically reassess the legacy of the Everest expeditions and to re-evaluate the symbolic, political and cultural status of Everest in the contemporary world.
Everest became the object of British mountaineering attention after the First World War for a number of reasons. Himalayan mountaineering presented the opportunity to reconstruct a form of heroic masculinity. To 'conquer' Everest would demonstrate British racial vigour and imperial fitness to rule in India. The mass media were avid for stories of heroism and adventure. The mythopoeic disappearance of Mallory and Irvine in 1924 reinforced dominant narratives of ill-fated adventure and the nobility of sacrifice. Enduring archetypes were created that continue to shape the popular understanding of Everest to the present day.
The Other Everests network will bring post-colonial perspectives to bear on Everest mountaineering narratives, challenging us to broaden and deepen our understanding of Everest's mountaineering history, its symbolic legacy and contemporary meanings, shifting the focus away from colonial-era narratives, providing access to the hidden histories of Everest. It brings historical perspectives to bear on the multiple contemporary ethical, social and political challenges thrown up by Everest, bringing together historians, geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and literature scholars to examine subjects as diverse as: the legacy of British imperialism, the hidden histories of exploration, labour hierarchies and welfare; 'overtourism' and the environmental and social impacts of adventure tourism, the disposal of human remains on the mountain, and the globalisation of mountaineering.
The Other Everests network will develop a network of academics and the custodians of significant archival collections relating to Everest, such as our project partner, the Royal Geographical Society, enabling contemporary scholarship to contribute to the discussion around appropriate forms of commemoration of the post-war Everest expeditions. The network will reflect on the commemorative activities that have already taken place in 2021 for the centenary of the much smaller Everest Reconnaissance Expedition of 1921, as well as taking part in the debates around the much more significant forthcoming centenaries of the British attempts to climb Everest that will be in 2022 and 2024. The network will ask fundamental questions about commemoration, memory and meaning and the role of contemporary archives in understanding Everest today: questions such as 'Whose history are we commemorating?'; 'How do we incorporate Nepalese and Tibetan perspectives in our interpretation of mountaineering on Everest?'; 'What are the sources for the history of indigenous high-altitude labour?'; 'How does history continue to shape contemporary globalised mountaineering cultures on Everest?'; 'How can digitisation facilitate co-production and digital repatriation?'; 'What are the challenges of engaging different communities and publics as co-producers of knowledge, enabling them to be part of the process of reinterpreting the legacy of mountaineering on Everest?'.
Other Everests will take a once-in-a-100-year opportunity to critically reassess the legacy of Everest and its meaning in contemporary culture and society. It will make its findings widely accessible in an Open-Access collection of critical essays that address key themes highlighted by the network and it will work with our project partners at the Kendal Mountain Festival to develop public lectures and events that translate contemporary scholarship into publicly accessible formats.
Everest became the object of British mountaineering attention after the First World War for a number of reasons. Himalayan mountaineering presented the opportunity to reconstruct a form of heroic masculinity. To 'conquer' Everest would demonstrate British racial vigour and imperial fitness to rule in India. The mass media were avid for stories of heroism and adventure. The mythopoeic disappearance of Mallory and Irvine in 1924 reinforced dominant narratives of ill-fated adventure and the nobility of sacrifice. Enduring archetypes were created that continue to shape the popular understanding of Everest to the present day.
The Other Everests network will bring post-colonial perspectives to bear on Everest mountaineering narratives, challenging us to broaden and deepen our understanding of Everest's mountaineering history, its symbolic legacy and contemporary meanings, shifting the focus away from colonial-era narratives, providing access to the hidden histories of Everest. It brings historical perspectives to bear on the multiple contemporary ethical, social and political challenges thrown up by Everest, bringing together historians, geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and literature scholars to examine subjects as diverse as: the legacy of British imperialism, the hidden histories of exploration, labour hierarchies and welfare; 'overtourism' and the environmental and social impacts of adventure tourism, the disposal of human remains on the mountain, and the globalisation of mountaineering.
The Other Everests network will develop a network of academics and the custodians of significant archival collections relating to Everest, such as our project partner, the Royal Geographical Society, enabling contemporary scholarship to contribute to the discussion around appropriate forms of commemoration of the post-war Everest expeditions. The network will reflect on the commemorative activities that have already taken place in 2021 for the centenary of the much smaller Everest Reconnaissance Expedition of 1921, as well as taking part in the debates around the much more significant forthcoming centenaries of the British attempts to climb Everest that will be in 2022 and 2024. The network will ask fundamental questions about commemoration, memory and meaning and the role of contemporary archives in understanding Everest today: questions such as 'Whose history are we commemorating?'; 'How do we incorporate Nepalese and Tibetan perspectives in our interpretation of mountaineering on Everest?'; 'What are the sources for the history of indigenous high-altitude labour?'; 'How does history continue to shape contemporary globalised mountaineering cultures on Everest?'; 'How can digitisation facilitate co-production and digital repatriation?'; 'What are the challenges of engaging different communities and publics as co-producers of knowledge, enabling them to be part of the process of reinterpreting the legacy of mountaineering on Everest?'.
Other Everests will take a once-in-a-100-year opportunity to critically reassess the legacy of Everest and its meaning in contemporary culture and society. It will make its findings widely accessible in an Open-Access collection of critical essays that address key themes highlighted by the network and it will work with our project partners at the Kendal Mountain Festival to develop public lectures and events that translate contemporary scholarship into publicly accessible formats.
| Description | Jonathan Westaway - Outputs and Impact Statement Jonathan Westaway has been Project Lead on two AHRC funded projects that have had a specific emphasis on developing innovative decolonial research practice and involve research coproduction with diverse communities and project partners in the Global South. The first project entitled Other Everests: Commemoration, Memory and Meaning and the British Everest Expedition Centenaries, 2021-2024 (Grant AH/W004917/1, £24,207) was a research network that brought together academics, archivists, curators and learned societies to critically reassess the histories and legacies of the British Mount Everest expeditions of the 1920s. Working in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG), the Other Everests research network convened a workshop at the RGS in London. The network's stated objective was to research the hidden histories of indigenous high-altitude labour on these expeditions, developing post-colonial perspectives that critique enduring late imperial meta-narratives of heroic white masculinity. Activities and plenaries from the workshop are archived on the Other Everests website. The major output from this research network is an edited collection of essays edited by Westaway, Prof. Peter Hansen (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA) and Dr. Paul Gilchrist (University of Brighton), entitled Other Everests: One Mountain, Many Worlds (Manchester University Press, 2024). Described as 'a milestone in scholarly research on Chomolungma/Mount Everest', the book represents the first scholarly attempt to historically assess the significance of Mount Everest in the contemporary world. The book was published as both an affordable trade paperback and is available Open Access to enable its widest possible dissemination, particularly to scholars in the Global South and Greater Himalaya region. Westaway received follow-on funding for engagement and impact from the AHRC to produce public engagement events that mobilized research from the Other Everest network during the 2024 centenary of the 1924 Mount Everest Expedition (Grant AH/Z506035/1, £77,882). Westaway worked with project partner The National Trust in the Lake District to curate a six-month exhibition at the National Trust venue Wray Castle, Windermere, Lake District (June - November 2024). Entitled Other Everest: One Mountain, Many Worlds, the exhibition focussed on the contribution of indigenous high-altitude labour to the success of these exhibitions, utilizing expeditionary archive photographs from the RGS-IBG archives. The exhibition was seen by 80,000+ visitors and it significantly diversified the visitor profile to Wray Castle. [OTHER EVERESTS: ONE MOUNTAIN, MANY WORLDS exhibition Wray Castle, National Trusthttps://vimeo.com/1030772204/572ee9d8ef]. Westaway worked with project partners The Kendal Mountain Festival 2024 (KMF2024) to bring Other Everests research to a wider public our outdoor and mountaineering enthusiasts. Westaway commissioned a new score for John Noel's 1922 film Climbing Mount Everest, the first film ever to be shot in Tibet. Working with the composers Lee Affen and Ferenc Gyemant and the Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Tashi Lhunpo monastery in India, the film score premiered to a sell-out audience of 200 at KMF2024 on 22 November 2024. The film score aimed to incorporate specifically Tibetan perspectives on the Everest Expedition of 1922 and to highlight the presence of indigenous labour on these expeditions [CLIMBING MOUNT EVERST (1922) new film score + Introduction by Dr. Jonathan Westaway + lecture by Prof. Felix Driver, Royal Holloway, University of London https://vimeo.com/1036652732/7ef99456ab?share=copy]. Westaway also launched the Other Everests book at the KMF2024 with a round table discussion with the editors and contributors before an appreciative audience on 24 November 2024. Westaway is currently working with project partners The Confluence Collective, a group of activist scholars from Kalimpong, West Bengal, India, to curate another Other Everests exhibition that will be installed in Kalimpong in 2025. |
| Exploitation Route | The research has informed the decolonial archival and curatorial practices of the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers. |
| Sectors | Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526179173/9781526179173.xml |
| Description | Jonathan Westaway - Outputs and Impact Statement Jonathan Westaway has been Project Lead on two AHRC funded projects that have had a specific emphasis on developing innovative decolonial research practice and involve research coproduction with diverse communities and project partners in the Global South. The first project entitled Other Everests: Commemoration, Memory and Meaning and the British Everest Expedition Centenaries, 2021-2024 (Grant AH/W004917/1, £24,207) was a research network that brought together academics, archivists, curators and learned societies to critically reassess the histories and legacies of the British Mount Everest expeditions of the 1920s. Working in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG), the Other Everests research network convened a workshop at the RGS in London. The network's stated objective was to research the hidden histories of indigenous high-altitude labour on these expeditions, developing post-colonial perspectives that critique enduring late imperial meta-narratives of heroic white masculinity. Activities and plenaries from the workshop are archived on the Other Everests website. The major output from this research network is an edited collection of essays edited by Westaway, Prof. Peter Hansen (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA) and Dr. Paul Gilchrist (University of Brighton), entitled Other Everests: One Mountain, Many Worlds (Manchester University Press, 2024). Described as 'a milestone in scholarly research on Chomolungma/Mount Everest', the book represents the first scholarly attempt to historically assess the significance of Mount Everest in the contemporary world. The book was published as both an affordable trade paperback and is available Open Access to enable its widest possible dissemination, particularly to scholars in the Global South and Greater Himalaya region. Westaway received follow-on funding for engagement and impact from the AHRC to produce public engagement events that mobilized research from the Other Everest network during the 2024 centenary of the 1924 Mount Everest Expedition (Grant AH/Z506035/1, £77,882). Westaway worked with project partner The National Trust in the Lake District to curate a six-month exhibition at the National Trust venue Wray Castle, Windermere, Lake District (June - November 2024). Entitled Other Everest: One Mountain, Many Worlds, the exhibition focussed on the contribution of indigenous high-altitude labour to the success of these exhibitions, utilizing expeditionary archive photographs from the RGS-IBG archives. The exhibition was seen by 80,000+ visitors and it significantly diversified the visitor profile to Wray Castle. [OTHER EVERESTS: ONE MOUNTAIN, MANY WORLDS exhibition Wray Castle, National Trusthttps://vimeo.com/1030772204/572ee9d8ef]. Westaway worked with project partners The Kendal Mountain Festival 2024 (KMF2024) to bring Other Everests research to a wider public our outdoor and mountaineering enthusiasts. Westaway commissioned a new score for John Noel's 1922 film Climbing Mount Everest, the first film ever to be shot in Tibet. Working with the composers Lee Affen and Ferenc Gyemant and the Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Tashi Lhunpo monastery in India, the film score premiered to a sell-out audience of 200 at KMF2024 on 22 November 2024. The film score aimed to incorporate specifically Tibetan perspectives on the Everest Expedition of 1922 and to highlight the presence of indigenous labour on these expeditions [CLIMBING MOUNT EVERST (1922) new film score + Introduction by Dr. Jonathan Westaway + lecture by Prof. Felix Driver, Royal Holloway, University of London https://vimeo.com/1036652732/7ef99456ab?share=copy]. Westaway also launched the Other Everests book at the KMF2024 with a round table discussion with the editors and contributors before an appreciative audience on 24 November 2024. Westaway is currently working with project partners The Confluence Collective, a group of activist scholars from Kalimpong, West Bengal, India, to curate another Other Everests exhibition that will be installed in Kalimpong in 2025. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal Economic |
| Description | Other Everests Public Engagement 2024 |
| Amount | £77,882 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/Z506035/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2024 |
| End | 04/2025 |