The ocean returns
Mapping a mercurial Anthropocean
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3076455 |
|---|---|
| Authors | E Probyn (0000-0003-1847-4864, University of Sydney – Gender and Cultural Studies, Australia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 386-402 |
| Publication date | 2018-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science Information (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0539-0184 • E-ISSN: 1461-7412 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0539018418792402 |
| OpenAlex | W2888746957 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 24 |
Humans have dumped 'stuff' in oceans in a particularly concentrated way since the Industrial Revolution, the effects of which we now note as evidence of the Anthropocene - or the Anthropocean. In this article, I consider what the oceans now return to us in the form of pollution. I trace the production of a mercurial ocean through the production of mercury as it is taken up and transported by atmospheric and oceanic currents from artisanal mines in Asia, and transformed into methylmercury. As methylmercury, it enters into the food chain and eventuates in the diets of certain populations, especially those in Nordic countries, with toxic effects into future generations. This, I argue, produces a particular ocean, one with temporal and spatial multiplicity. The flow of mercury is gendered and racialized with women workers in Indonesia being primarily affected while women in the north are the recipients of methylmercury in the form of toxic fish. I engage with scientific research on mercury flows and methylmercury biogeochemical cycling, and draw on the work of Annemarie Mol on the body multiple, feminist research into epigenetics (Mansfield, Guthman, Landecker), and feminist environmental posthumanism (Alaimo, Neimanis). My argument seeks to disturb the singular and othered ocean in order to make way for the ocean multiple - a conception of the different forms of the oceanic produced through the athwart admixtures of the more-than-human (Helmreich, Probyn
Anthropocene · Bioaccumulation · Biogeochemical cycle · Biology · Environmental ethics · Food chain · Methylmercury · Sociology · Environmental Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Philosophy · Race, Genetics, and Society · Ecology · Geology · Oceanography
Environmental (in)justice in the Anthropocene ocean
The ocean in excess
Where is the Asia Pacific in mainstream international relations scholarship on the Anthropocene
Progress in historical geography II
Ocean Justice
Decoupling Seascapes
Drawing in Cosmopolitics
Bordering after nature, like an animal and beyond
Islands and Beaches in Science and Technology Studies
Slippery ontologies of tidal flats
The ocean returns
Eating the Ocean
Alien Ocean
Future Coastal Population Growth and Exposure to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding - A Global Assessment
Queer Times and Chemical Weapons, Suspended in the Gotland Deep
Race and the new epigenetic biopolitics of environmental health
Toward a Blue Cultural Studies
Of other seas
Folded Futurity
Phasing Out Mercury? Ecological Economics and Indonesia's Small-Scale Gold Mining Sector
Geopolitics of sensing and knowing
States of Suspension
Wet Ontologies, Fluid Spaces
The Black Atlantic Meets the Indian Ocean
The ocean returns
Water and Ocean
The Body Multiple
From Social Structure to Gene Regulation, and Back
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,38 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |