Stefan Helmreich, Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas Berkeley

摘要

In this whirlwind tour through marine microbiology and its politics, Stefan Helmreich (2009) playfully introduces the "alien ocean," a strange place on the border of human consciousness. One would guess that the alien ocean describes the inaccessible depths and unknown creatures dwelling in the abysses of our world, but actually it does not describe any specific place. Instead, Helmreich characterizes the alien ocean as "a zone suspended between places" that we connect to through chains of negotiation involving our media, exploring technologies, and social networks. Ranging from the tropical waters of Hawai'i to the deep basin of Monterey bay to the Sargasso Sea to Jupiter's moon Europa, Helmreich looks at how marine microbes dwelling in the alien ocean are changing the narratives we tell about the origins of life, kinship, and our (political) relationships to the ocean's resources. In two fresh chapters on the politics of microbial bioprospecting in Hawai'i, Helmreich builds upon Stephen Collier and Aihwa Ong's work to interrogate the categories of native/alien. Invasive species introduced by passing ships have threatened the indigenous biodiversity of Hawai'i for years. The Hawaiian government-particularly sensitive to the echoes of colonialism-has worked not only to protect indigenous species from invasive species but also from bioprospectors who seek microbes that might lead to the next blockbuster drug. With this backdrop in place, Helmreich examines the biopolitics of what he calls "blue-green capitalism" and how it is challenged by native Hawaiians. Blue-green capitalism references both the cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that serve as a biological resource and also serves as an analogue for Hawaiian marine biotechnology where "blue