Embodiment and Precarity in Deep Seabed Mining: Extraction on the Blue Green Resource Frontier

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dc.contributor.advisorMawyer, Alexander
dc.contributor.authorHarris, Lindsey
dc.contributor.departmentAnthropology
dc.date.accessioned2024-10-09T23:46:14Z
dc.date.available2024-10-09T23:46:14Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.degreePh.D.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/108704
dc.subjectCultural anthropology
dc.subjectGeography
dc.subjectBlue green economy
dc.subjectCleantech
dc.subjectDeep seabed mining
dc.subjectGreen investment
dc.subjectPrecarity
dc.subjectResource frontier
dc.titleEmbodiment and Precarity in Deep Seabed Mining: Extraction on the Blue Green Resource Frontier
dc.typeThesis
dcterms.abstractThe deep seabed and its resources remain tantalizing mysteries, not only in science fiction, but increasingly in scientific and technological inquiry. Recent interest in deep seabed mining in the seabed beyond national jurisdiction (the Area) in the Pacific Ocean has fluctuated since John Mero asserted the vast potential economic value of polymetallic nodules (Mero 1962), which some actors now view as a sustainable and ethical alternative to terrestrial mining. This dissertation argues that deep seabed mining has also continued to struggle to become a commercial industry in part because it is vulnerable to several different types of precarities: including the production of scientific and embodied knowledge about how to conduct offshore deep seabed mining fieldwork, the properties and topography of seabed, the resource, and related marine ecosystems; the attrition of deep seabed mining-experienced sub-contractors into other offshore regimes; the struggle to attract potential investors; the ongoing evolution of the regulatory bodies charged to administer the seabed and mineral resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction; the difficulty obtaining the social license to commence deep seabed mining; and long-term efficacy of capacity building training programs meant to provide individuals, especially those from developing countries, with jobs in an industry that has yet to fully form. This dissertation both builds upon existing literature defining precarity as the conditions by which harm is externalized upon communities such that they are disproportionately and systematically disenfranchised or exposed to violence and extends precarity to examine the myriad ways that stakeholders contend with and contest this proposed regime’s vulnerabilities to capital, personnel, and knowledge conditions. In doing so, this dissertation describes some of the ways that the production of unstable labor regimes is entangled with the wobbliness of corporate extraction regimes and ‘green’ investment on marine resource frontiers. This dissertation employs ‘nodal’ ethnography to follow deep seabed mining proponents and opponents from the floor of The International Seabed Authority's Assembly Room to the offshore labs of science teams producing data and technologies that make visible and possible different deep seabed mining futures.
dcterms.extent297 pages
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.publisherUniversity of Hawai'i at Manoa
dcterms.rightsAll UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.
dcterms.typeText
local.identifier.alturihttp://dissertations.umi.com/hawii:12322

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