Performing \u2018blue degrowth\u2019: critiquing seabed mining in Papua New Guinea through creative practice

John Childs

doi:10.1007/s11625-019-00752-2

Abstract

Scripted as a sustainable alternative to terrestrial mining, the licence for the world’s first commercial deep-sea mining (DSM) site was issued in Papua New Guinea in 2011 to extract copper and gold from a deposit situated 1600 m below the surface of the Bismarck Sea. Whilst DSM’s proponents locate it as emergent part of a blue economy narrative, its critics point to the ecological and economic uncertainty that characterises the proposed practice. Yet, due its extreme geography, DSM is also profoundly elusive to direct human experience and thus presents a challenge to forms of resistance against an industry extolled as having ‘no human impact’. Against this background, this paper analyses the ways in which ‘blue degrowth’—as a distinct form of counter-narrative—might be ‘performed’, and which imagined (and alternative) geographies are invoked accordingly. To do this it critically reflects upon 2 years of participatory research in the Duke of York Islands focusing on three, community-developed methods of resisting DSM. Practices of counter mapping, sculpture and participatory drama all sought to ‘perform’ the deep-ocean environment imagined as relational whilst simultaneously questioning the very notion of ‘economy’ central to the discourse of ‘blue growth’.

Highlights

Scripted as a sustainable alternative to terrestrial mining, the world’s first commercial deep-sea mining (DSM) site—named Solwara 1—has, since 2011, planned to extract copper and gold from a deposit situated 1600 m below the surface of the Bismarck Sea in Papua New Guinea
A final way in which a counter narrative to blue growth was articulated was through the design and performance of a short play which sought to confront the politics of DSM
This paper has shown one example of how creative practice can emerge as a counter-narrative to a DSM industry depicted as a ‘sustainable’ version of blue growth

Summary

Introduction

Scripted as a sustainable alternative to terrestrial mining, the world’s first commercial deep-sea mining (DSM) site—named Solwara 1—has, since 2011, planned to extract copper and gold from a deposit situated 1600 m below the surface of the Bismarck Sea in Papua New Guinea. To do this it critically reflects upon 2 years of participatory research in the Duke of York Islands, Papua New Guinea by focusing on three, community-generated methods of resisting DSM It examines creative practices such as sculpture, participatory drama and drawing, all of which all seek to ‘perform’ a deep-ocean environment imagined as relational whilst simultaneously questioning the very notion of ‘economy’ central to the discourse of ‘blue growth’. The article proceeds in section two, by theoretically situating deep-sea mining politics in Papua New Guinea as part of a blue growth narrative where claims to the industry’s sustainability are central to the contention raised It continues by outlining its counterpoint—‘blue degrowth’—as an analytically diverse entry point for counter-narrating the deep-ocean, not as a capitalist site of extraction but as a space of justice and conviviality.

Drawing the deep sea

Participatory sculpture

Performing blue degrowth

Participatory theatre

Conclusion