Brazil's commitment to Antarctica: recent trajectory and future prospects in light of the inauguration of the new Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station

Abstract

The recent inauguration of the rebuilt Brazilian Antarctic Station Comandante Ferraz and the announcement of the acquisition of a new polar ship seem to indicate a renewed interest of Brazil in Antarctica. However, a more contextualized interpretation of those events demands an appraisal of the recent evolution of other factors. Following that aim, the present paper presents an analysis of the recent evolution of three factors of the Brazilian Antarctic programme: infrastructure and political and scientific institutional setting. The analysis concludes that a strong investment in physical infrastructure have strengthened the pre-existent profile of Brazil in Antarctica, but have not added new capacities. Regarding the political institutional setting, it continues to be relatively reduced in scale and poorly specialized. At last, the scientific research has experienced a relevant process of institutionalization, but without reaching stability in terms of funding and influence within the Brazilian Antarctic politics. Furthermore, the exclusion of humanities and social sciences presents a relevant limitation in a field that is acquiring international prominence. Therefore, Brazil have been successful in maintaining its Antarctic involvement at a relevant scale internationally, but it is not expected that would expand significantly in the near future.