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Colonizing the Ocean: Coral Reef Histories in the Anthropocene

  • Petra Löffler (author)
Chapter of: Earth and Beyond in Tumultuous Times: A Critical Atlas of the Anthropocene(pp. 185–213)

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Metadata
TitleColonizing the Ocean
SubtitleCoral Reef Histories in the Anthropocene
ContributorPetra Löffler (author)
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
CopyrightPetra Löffler
Publishermeson press
Published on2021-03-15
Long abstractThis article analyzes historical and current attempts to colonize the ocean. Each section discusses different, but interrelated, geopolitical strategies of colonization: first, I focus on the occupation of a territory and its marine environment by military means, turning it into a site of environmental degradation—a “debrisphere.” I discuss the series of nuclear tests, conducted by the US military in the 1950s on Bikini Atoll, as stratigraphic traces of the Anthropocene. Second, I examine the exploitation of deep-sea resources in the form of the extraction of oil or gas from the seafloor, as well as the removal of corals and other sediments from reefs to collect, analyze, store and display in museums. I argue that these operations share the same interest of possessing marine resources. Third, I analyze utopias as well as scientific programs aiming to populate submarine environments. In all sections I posit that keeping in mind the world-building yet fragile ecology of coral reefs is important for critical accounts of the Anthropocene. They show how endangered multi-species habitats are in times of anthropogenic extraction, pollution, and global warming.
Page rangepp. 185–213
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Petra Löffler

(author)
Professor of Theory and History of Contemporary Media at University of Oldenburg

Petra Löffler is Professor of Theory and History of Contemporary Media at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Her particular research interests include media archeology, media ecologies, archival practices, and material culture.