Countermapping depth: engaging creatively with the seabed

Keywords: Depth, Countermapping,
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 14

Abstract

There is an unprecedented push to scientifically map the earth’s seabed. Varied in their scope and purpose, these mapping efforts aim to develop geographic data useful for a range of beneficiaries – from navigation to climate science, and from resource extraction to ocean conservation. In doing so they must navigate both the material and creative challenges of engaging with depth as a key analytical idea. Yet such mapping efforts can also be seen as part of a ‘blue acceleration’ which reproduce capitalist political economic orderings, perpetuate injustices and underplay the many ways in which maps actively shape geopolitical imaginations. By treating depth uncritically, and by attempting to simply ‘surface’ the seabed through their designs and technologies, maps like these often foster new geographies of exclusion and dispossession.
Against this background, this paper seeks to think through what ‘counter-mapping’ the seabed might look like? It considers the potential of a diverse range of geospatial strategies – including from art, storytelling and performance – to better highlight the complex political geographies of the seabed. By working through both conceptual and methodological examples, it provokes questions necessary to better understanding an environment currently being reconfigured into a site of extraction. What is the seabed? To whom/what does the seabed belong? By reimagining what is meant by a map and who counts as a ‘map-maker’, how might maps work creatively with depth to move beyond visualisation and engage creatively with different senses? How might these offer forms of resistance for indigenous and marginalised groups?