Making land to make life: island-building in the South China Sea and the biopolitics of geophysical transformation

摘要

Recent work in environmental politics has sought to expand the domain of 'the geopolitical' to include geologic transformation, bringing the human alteration of terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric forms into the political sphere. In line with this 'geologic turn', this paper examines China's recent land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea as a starting point for a broader conversation on the politics of geophysical change. With recent discussion of geoengineering to avert the consequences of climate change, we reaffirm calls to address questions of participation, equity and accountability in geoengineering, but also to challenge assumptions of what is being modified, by whom, and for whom. To that end, we argue that human modification of the geophysical environment is an expression not only of a geologic politics (of territory and resources), but of a biopolitics that seeks to reclaim and perfect populations: a politics of making life and letting die.