Rethinking the history of early Everest expeditions
In the 1920s, the Royal Geographical Society became involved in a series of efforts to climb Mount Everest, culminating in the successful summiting by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary in 1953.
Discussions about these expeditions have often focused on British men, such as George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, and on the expedition leaders. In contrast, recent research, including Hidden Histories of Exploration and work carried out by members of the Other Everests network, focuses on under-researched members of these expeditions. This resource delves into some of those forgotten stories.
These talks were given at an event on 'Recording the First Everest Expeditions', held at the Society in November 2022. A full recording of the event can be found here.
In this talk Professor Felix Driver, a historical geographer at Royal Holloway, discusses using the Collections to study the labour forces on early Everest expeditions.
Dr Jonathan Westaway, University of Central Lancashire, discusses the Other Everests Project. His talk is titled 'Encountering the Indigenous Body in the Himalayan Borderlands.'
Atem Lemtur is a PhD student at Göttingen University. Her talk focuses on German expeditions in the inter-war period and examines the experiences and contributions of porters to these expeditions.
Supervising Black geography PhD researchers in the UK
This report by Victoria Ogoegbunam Okoye summarises research on the supervision of Black Geography PhD students in UK universities.
Animals in the Royal Geographical Society’s archives
A Be Inspired talk by Dr Catherine Oliver. Through stories of work, companionship, conflict, and discovery, animals are rethought as important geographical actors.
Critical histories of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
A reading list exploring aspects of the Society's past.