Making Algae (In-)Visible: Tourism, Responsibility and Governance in the Caribbean

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Laura McAdam-Otto
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 461841531

While microplastics, industrial run-offs reaching open seas, and depleting fish stocks are the most prevalent anthropogenic threats to the ecological integrity of oceans, a recent development has received significantly less attention to date: harmful algae which threaten both oceans and coastlines. These algae cause beach degradation, prevent coral photosynthesis, and bring about long-term changes in the water and on land. The frequency of their appearance, their volume, and the areas in which they are spreading are all increasing. This phenomenon can currently be observed particularly well in several Caribbean countries of Central and Latin America where Sargasso seaweed, a specific floating algae, has been washed ashore in atypically high volumes in the past few years. The algae threatens tourism, the ecosystem and human health. Sargasso and emerging practices of dealing with the algae constitute the object of this study. Since countris like Mexico and Barbados play a particularly important political and geographical role in the context of the Sargasso problem, I situate my project along their Caribbean coasts where the ‘algae problem’ is most prominent. I examine questions of responsibility-making and governance ethnographically in this context of anthropogenic environmental change. The project addresses the following research questions: How is anthropogenic environmental change governed along the Caribbean coast? How are commodification, responsibility-making and (in-)formal governance negotiated along touristified coastal zones with and through anthropogenic environmental change in actors’ everyday lives? And how are non-human actors implicated? Methodologically, I employ ethnographic fieldwork in terms of multi-sited, multi-actor and multi-species research strategies. My project is situated at the nexus of cultural studies, cultural anthropology and within the “naturescultures” debate wherein I make use of concepts such as commodification, responsibility and governance. Having spent eight weeks in Mexico already, I have also secured agreements of cooperation with researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Cinvestav Mérida, as well as Centro Ecológico Akumal. In addition, I have secured an agreement of cooperation with the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at Goethe University.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants