Nature/Culture/Seawater
Name
nature-culture-seawater AA rev.pdf
Size
148.77 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b370668bc3621a0249c49a283d8d9c02
Author(s)
Helmreich, Stefan
Date Issued
March 2011
Journal
American Anthropologist
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Citation
Helmreich, S. (2011), Nature/Culture/Seawater. American Anthropologist, 113: 132–144. doi: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01311.x
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
This essay considers seawater as a substance and symbol in anthropological and social theory. Seawater has occupied an ambiguous place with respect to anthropological categories of nature and culture. Seawater as nature appears as potentiality of form and uncontainable flux; it moves faster than culture — with culture frequently figured through land-based metaphors — even as culture seeks to channel water/nature’s flow. Seawater as culture manifests as a medium of pleasure, sustenance, travel, disaster. I track these associations historically, arguing that while the qualities of seawater in early anthropology were portrayed impressionistically, today it is technical and scientific descriptions of the form of water that have become prevalent in figuring social, political, and economic forces. For example, processes of globalization — which I suggest may also be called “oceanization” — are often described in terms of currents, flows, circulations. Examining canonical sea-set ethnography, maritime anthropologies , and contemporary social theory, I argue that seawater has operated as a “theory machine” for generating insights about human cultural organization. I develop this argument using ethnographic materials drawn from fieldwork among oceanographers working in the Sargasso Sea and in the Sea Islands. I conclude with a critique of appeals to the form of water in social theory.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01311.x
