Project
NWO Veni: The Future of Past Reefs: Politics of Care in Oyster Restoration Across the Northern Atlantic
There is increasing interest in bringing back oyster reefs that once covered North-Atlantic coasts. Reef restoration involves practices of caring and repairing, assuming human intervention. This raises the question: what is a good reef to restore for the future? This project investigates how different perspectives come together in restoration and which ones are in- or excluded in the process. Based on fieldwork in the US, Netherlands and the UK, findings illuminate how to restore reefs in inclusive and just ways.
Overview
Restoration initiatives are surging globally to repair degraded reefs through human intervention. Although it is widely agreed that this is a good thing to do, it raises the political question: what is a ‘good reef’ to restore? And for whom? Social scientists warn for deep-seated inequalities in whose voice is listened to and what knowledge counts. However, such research has almost entirely focused on tropical reefs. This has illuminated mechanisms of excluding voices from the South, but ignored the plural perspectives on reef care in the North. This project opens a new field of research on plural ways of knowing and caring for oyster reefs across the North Atlantic.
Through the lens of ‘care', this project re-conceptualizes the politics involved in reef restoration. Despite its moral association of ‘doing good’, care is political. It is underpinned by different assumptions of what is a good and healthy reef, and what knowledge should guide intervention. How do these politics of care shape the conditions for including plural knowledge in marine restoration in the North Atlantic? Addressing this question, this project sheds light on how restoration enacts specific inclusions and exclusions in knowing and repairing degraded marine environments for an uncertain future.
The qualitative research involves a multi-sited research design, with three exemplary case studies in the United States, Netherlands and United Kingdom. Here, oyster reefs are uniquely entangled with transatlantic cultural history and industrialization. My project combines ethnographic research with experimental video elicitation for data collection, analysis and outreach. Through a focus on oysters, this will contribute new insights to the current re-imagining and re-shaping of human-nature connections in degraded marine environments. The findings will support shaping more equitable conditions for reef restoration science, policy and practice and advance debate on epistemological justice in marine restoration globally.
