Seeing like a pond: Amphibious stories of coastal subsidence in Central Java

IF 3.1 2区 社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY
Marie Belland , Bagas Yusuf Kausan , Michelle Kooy , Margreet Zwarteveen
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Abstract

Sinking cities populate imaginaries of the future in ways that resign entire populations of humans and non-humans to erasure. In this article, we take issue with the narrative of sinking as ‘losing ground to the sea’ through ethnographic research in the periphery of Semarang, Indonesia. Drawing on recent scholarship that calls for de-essentializing the water-land divide, we set out to write an amphibious history of the North Coast of Java. We do this by following shrimp- and fishponds, or “tambak” through time. Tambak are ambiguous spaces of encounter for the decisive protagonists of North Java coastal history: sediments, fresh- and tidal-waters, shrimp, pond workers, and developers. We mobilize tambak as an ethnographic device to re-tell three episodes of this history: the shifts of tidal flows shaping coastal landscapes since the 1900s; the enclosure of ponds due to shrimp farming intensification in the 1980s; and more recently, land speculation and the coerced acquisition of submerged and contaminated land. These three episodes, or so we argue, are connected by the struggle between amphibiousness and purification, aimed at separating land from water. The outcome of this struggle is not settled, as projects of purification never fully succeed. Yet, purity-oriented practices and projects to make dry land do cause coastal dispossession and the loss of more-than-human relations in and around the ponds. Driven by concerns for these losses, we propose a shift in the politics of coastal subsidence from the purification of land from water, towards the maintenance and reinforcement of more-than-human amphibious relations.
像池塘一样看:中爪哇海岸下沉的两栖故事
下沉的城市以某种方式充斥着对未来的想象,让整个人类和非人类人口都被抹去。在这篇文章中,我们通过对印尼三宝垄周边地区的民族志研究,对沉没的叙述提出了质疑。根据最近呼吁淡化水-地鸿沟的学术研究,我们开始写一部爪哇北海岸的两栖历史。我们通过跟踪虾和鱼塘,或“tambak”来做到这一点。Tambak是北爪哇海岸历史上决定性的主角们相遇的模糊空间:沉积物、淡水和潮汐水、虾、池塘工人和开发商。我们将tambak作为一种民族志工具,重新讲述这段历史的三个片段:自20世纪以来潮汐流的变化塑造了沿海景观;20世纪80年代虾类养殖集约化导致的池塘圈闭;最近,土地投机和被淹没和被污染的土地的强制征用。我们认为,这三个片段是由两栖性和净化性之间的斗争联系起来的,目的是将土地与水分开。这场斗争的结果尚未确定,因为净化计划从未完全成功。然而,以净化为导向的实践和项目制造旱地确实导致了沿海的剥夺和池塘内外超越人类关系的丧失。出于对这些损失的担忧,我们建议将沿海下沉的政策从土地和水的净化转变为维护和加强超越人类的两栖关系。
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来源期刊
Geoforum
Geoforum GEOGRAPHY-
CiteScore
7.30
自引率
5.70%
发文量
201
期刊介绍: Geoforum is an international, inter-disciplinary journal, global in outlook, and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy and environment, through national systems of regulation and governance, to urban and regional development, local economic and urban planning and resources management. The journal also includes a Critical Review section which features critical assessments of research in all the above areas.
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