Pteropods Realized: Transformative Encounters and the Co-Production of Environmental Value

Keywords: Coupled-marine human systems, non human worlds, pteropods
Session Type: Virtual Paper
Day: Thursday
Session Start / End Time: 4/8/2021 03:05 PM (Pacific Time (US & Canada)) - 4/8/2021 04:20 PM (Pacific Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 30

Abstract

Charismatic megafauna have dominated the rhetoric concerning marine issues. They serve a performative function that allows us to connect with the natural world in ways that would be otherwise difficult (Mittman, Daston; 2005). Considering how organisms as scientific objects were chosen and utilized can shed light on the transformative encounters that bring animals to the foreground or relegate them to relative obscurity (Daston, 2000; Mittman, Fausto-Sterling, 1992). Generally, the literature interrogating these relationships centers on large and relatable species (Arch, 2018; Siegal, 2005). So, how did an awkward, transparent, and faceless gastropod, only millimeters in size, become both the scientific proxy for and cultural embodiment of changing ocean conditions at the turn of the 21st century? What can asking this question tell us about the circulatory nature of scientific practice, visual culture, and marine activism? My research considers how charismatic microfauna made the leap from sea to shore. I used a historical, yet interdisciplinary approach to archival materials, visual analysis, and personal interactions to productively historicize the role of microorganisms in the context of ocean history (Armitage et al., 2018; Heidbrink, 2017; Rozwadowski, 2010). I argue that how scientists utilized pteropods revealed the beauty and fragility of marine zooplankton, and made real the intangible anthropogenic impacts of excess carbon in the atmosphere. Pteropods, in their role as bio-indicator and bio-inspiration, didn’t just emerge alongside the cultural and political salience of ocean acidification, they made it possible.