Nature-Made Economy: Cod, Capital, and the Great Economization of the Ocean
The ocean is the site of an ongoing transformation that is aimed at creating new economic opportunities and prosperity. In Nature-Made Economy, Kristin Asdal and Tone Huse explore how the ocean has been harnessed to become a space of capital investment and innovation, and how living nature is wrested into the economy even as nature, in turn, resists, adapts to, or changes the economy. The authors‘ innovative methodological and conceptual approaches examine the economy by focusing on surprising and numerous “little tools”—such as maps and policy documents, quality patrols, and dietary requirements for the enhancement of species‘ biological propensities—that value, direct, reorder, accomplish, and sometimes fail to serve our ends, but also add up to great change.
Throughout Nature-Made Economy, Asdal and Huse follow one species, the Atlantic cod, and explore how it is subjected to different versions of economization. Taking this species as a point of departure, they then provide novel analyses of the innovation economy, the architecture of markets, the settling of prices, and more, revealing how the ocean is rendered a space of intense economic exploitation. Through their analysis, the authors develop a distinct theoretical approach and conceptual vocabulary for studying nature–economy relations.
Nature-Made Economy is a significant contribution to the broad field of STS and social studies of markets, as well as to studies of the Anthropocene, the environment, and human–animal relations.
After a presentation of the book by one of the authors, Kristin Asdal, Cornelius Heimstädt will moderate the discussion.
This event is part of the public lecture series “High-Tech Valorization of Nature: (Re)Production, Technology and Politics in Green Capitalist Projects” hosted by the BioMaterialities Research Group at Humboldt University Berlin.
Attendance in person:
Join us on February 2, 2024, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. (CET) at the Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Building 12, Hannoversche Straße 27, Seminarraum 2.21.
If you would like to attend the event in presence, please register in advance as places are limited. To register, please send a short message to the following address: biomaterialities@hu-berlin.de
Attendance via Zoom:
You can attend the session under the following link: https://hu-berlin.zoom-x.de/j/68475948963
Further information:
More information about the event, future events and the research group can be found at the following link: https://biomaterialities.de/de/project/de/events/public-lecture-nature-made-economy-cod-capital-and-the-great-economization-of-the-ocean-2/
Last but not least: How to get the book?
The book was published open access by MIT Press and can be accessed chapter by chapter at the following link: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5671/Nature-Made-EconomyCod-Capital-and-the-Great
The book is written in such a way that the chapters are self-contained. It is therefore not necessary to read the entire book from cover to cover in order to benefit from the Public Lecture. It is also possible to selectively pick out individual chapters. We wish you an enjoyable read.