Environmental Care: How Marine Scientists Relate to Environmental Changes

Abstract

AbstractMarine scientists have reported drastic environmental changes in marine and polar regions as a result of climate change. The changes range from species compositions in coastal regions and the deep-sea floor, the degradation of water and ice quality to the ever-growing plastic pollution affecting marine habitats. Marine scientists study these changes in their fieldwork, and communicate their findings in scientific publications. Some also rally in protests for the necessity of political programs to tackle changes. Based on ethnographic visits and interviews with marine scientists, this study examines how marine scientists experience and act on environmental changes as individuals and as collectives. In order to analyze their experiences and actions, I use the notion of care and portray care in different times and spaces, from work to protest. I demonstrate how care needs to be situated in different times and spaces, how care is embedded in a complex relationship of institutional requirements and structural demands that researchers experience, but also how care receives institutionalization and has an impact on research interests and agendas. In doing so, I show the social and epistemic consequences of care, opening up a view of individual and collective care in the marine sciences.