Selling seasteading
Rhetoric, accumulation, and appropriation of space in French Polynesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13045189 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth Bennett (0000-0002-5420-8240, corresponding author), Elizabeth M Bennett (0000-0003-2727-9091, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 112-131 |
| Publication date | 2023-06-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Territory Politics Governance (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2162-2671 • E-ISSN: 2162-268X |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/21622671.2023.2212017 |
| OpenAlex | W4380356480 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 32 |
In 2017, The Seasteading Institute (TSI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of French Polynesia to begin the process of constructing an oceangoing semi-autonomous settlement. The Floating Island Project is a spatial and technological fix for the perceived failures of governance by contemporary states and territories justified by claiming that seasteading could offer solutions for coastal and island states facing the deleterious consequences of climate change. TSI’s experiments in governance are not just experiments in the management of populations – they are efforts to perpetuate capitalist accumulation regimes. Using Marxist rhetorical analysis to understand how TSI, Blue Frontiers and the government of French Polynesia attempted to sell seasteading in documents and news articles, social media posts, including other literature on seasteading, the human and more-than-human geographies of the ocean, geographies of volume, and critical literature on the ‘green’ and ‘blue’ economies, allows us to examine how TSI, its spinoff organization Blue Frontiers, and French Polynesia’s government sought to secure sustainable economic development in French Polynesia and political and economic autonomy for the seastead through controlling oceanic space
Appropriation · Linguistics · Political economy · Political science · Rhetoric · Sociology · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · French Urban and Social Studies · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Philosophy
An Uncooperative Commodity
Ocean grabbing
Blue Economy and Competing Discourses in International Oceans Governance
Of other seas
French and Chinese Nuclear Weapon Testing
Seasteads, land-grabs and international law
Green growth or ecological commodification
Atlas Swam
Development’, resistance and the geographies of affect in Oecussi
The Rahui
Islands as interstitial encrypted geographies
Secure the volume
The blue economy
Wet Ontologies, Fluid Spaces
The ocean as frontier
Workplace, emotional bonds and agency
Earth's Amphibious Transformation
Floating Islands, Frontiers, and Other Boundary Objects on the Edge of Oceania's Futurity
Tahiti Intertwined
Blue growth
Green Grabbing
Enclaves of Improvement
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |