Assembling the Seabed: Pan-European and Interdisciplinary Advances in Understanding Seabed Mining

Abstract

This chapter deploys assemblage theory and thinking to bring together a unique set of insights on the seabed ranging from the ecological, to legal, practice to theoretical. It does so with a particular aim in mind: to integrate debates pertinent to understanding the frontier space of the sea floor. Whilst there are increasing calls for interdisciplinary integration in the marine sciences, combining the natural and social sciences research on the space of the seabed and its potential for mining tends to be siloed with work addressing component parts of such possible processes: ecosystem and ecosystem service aspects, legal dimensions, and geopolitical aspects, to name but a few. Whilst these contributions touch upon intersecting issues (society and environment; law and economics, and so on) they remained centered on particular disciplinary and scientific offerings to understanding the seabed and prospect of seabed mining. This chapter offers a thoroughly ‘joined up’ approach, which presents a prism through which to better understand the issues at stake in venturing to the new vertical frontiers of ocean extraction.