Underwater Worlds: An Ethnography of Waste, Pollution, and Marine Life (Sustainable Development Goals Series) - Softcover

Rodineliussen, Rasmus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3031633725 ISBN 13: 9783031633720

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025

Synopsis

This book investigates relations between humans, waste, pollution, and marine life. It introduces the concept of Aquabiopolitics as a means to understand how humans govern life in water in order to enrich human life on land. The study focuses on the Baltic Sea and Lake Mälaren, using Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, as the connection point. Throughout the book, the author explores how human practices over time have had devastating effects on marine life and continue to have so today. The book engages with the marine world through underwater ethnography to provide a perspective on water from below the surface. In this endeavor, it tracks marine scientists and trash scuba divers who are jointly invested in tracking human maltreatment of water and finding solutions for treating water differently in the future. It follows the scientists on expeditions at sea and to their laboratories in order to learn about their methods and relations to underwater worlds. Together with the trash scuba divers, we will dive into the dark murky waters around Stockholm—experiencing what it is like to move below water, among sharp and toxic waste, without any visibility. The work of creating a knowing and caring relationship between humans and water is of key importance to both scientists and divers. Therefore, one of the main parts of this book is to analyze how, and if, this relationship can be created: via social media, images, installations, or other means.

About this title

About the Author

Rasmus Rodineliussen, Ph.D., Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, has published in a number of peer-reviewed journals such as Anthropology Now, Visual Studies, Anthrovision, Irish Journal of Anthropology, Kritisk etnografi, and has two entries in SAGE Research Methods and Doing Research Online. Rasmus is also co-editor for the award-winning journal the Anthropology Book Forum.

From the Back Cover

“Underwater Worlds takes readers on a deep dive into the entanglements of care, technology, and contamination in contemporary water-worlds. Richly granular narratives and innovative more-than-human methodologies undergird the work's innovative articulation of 'aquabiopolitics' as a conceptual lens into the relationship of waste, pollution, and marine life, enriching and informing fields including environmental anthropology, political ecology, STS, and the environmental humanities.”
―Sophie Chao, Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Sydney

“With great sensitivity and scholarship, Rodineliussen shows us how, more than a sink or a bath, our waters have long been treated as a toilet in which we dump our shit, from industrial effluents, to plastics and old car batteries. This (sea) bottom-up ethnography of renegade citizen-scientists offers a compelling vision of a new water politics that moves us from bare life to thriving ecosystems.”
―Patrick O’Hare, Senior Researcher, Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews

This book introduces the concept of Aquabiopolitics to understand how humans govern life in water to enrich human life on land. The study focuses on the Baltic Sea and Lake Mälaren, using Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, as the connection point. The author explores how human practices over time have had devastating effects on marine life and continue to have so today. The book engages with the marine world through underwater ethnography, providing a perspective on water from below the surface. It joins marine scientists and trash scuba divers who are jointly invested in tracking human maltreatment of water and finding solutions for treating water differently. One of the key parts is to analyze how, and if, this relationship can be created: via social media, images, installations, or other means.

Rasmus Rodineliussen, PhD, is the co-editor of the award-winning journal Anthropology Book Forum.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3031633725
• ISBN 13: 9783031633720
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272