Displacement: Floating (Jellyfish) Bodies in Circulation

Keywords: Political Ecology, bioeconomy, oceans, Anthropocene, STS,
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 16

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, scientists and science writers have periodically raised the alarm around the increasing frequency of jellyfish blooms. Such warnings often feature apocalyptic scenarios in which floating gelatinous masses displace the functional biodiversity of a healthy ocean. Within these narratives, jellyfish have become, modifying Bruno Latour’s concept, an object of displaced concern: while scientists suggest that expansion of blooms is indicative of a syndrome of anthropogenic stressors—a collision of commercial shipping, terrestrial run-off, climate change, over-fishing, and the expansion of underwater infrastructure—jellyfish themselves have been made the target of scientific and policy intervention. In Europe, for example, after several failed attempts to “secure the volume” of the Mediterranean Sea by expelling jellyfish, scientists and governments have reframed them as a resource rather than a nuisance. They now advocate bringing gelatinous bodies out of the sea and into human bodies as both food and biopharmaceutical.

This presentation will reflect on the multiple conceptual and material displacements of jellyfish as they are made a resource for the Blue Economy. In it, I highlight how the voluminous biomatters of jellyfish are broken down materially and conceptually as they transgress boundaries between marine and terrestrial space as well as the flesh of bodies. In doing so, I question in how far volumetric geographies can account for displacement and the transformation of matter across space, time, and epistemic communities. Ultimately, I propose geographical methods capable of accounting for voluminous matter (gelatinous or otherwise) that is taken out of place and put into circulation.