Workshop Update - The Politics of Deep Sea Mining in the Pacific
The workshop The Politics of Deep Sea Mining in the Pacific was recently hosted at the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury on December 2 - 3, 2024.
Scholars from a broad range of disciplines including political science, development studies, anthropology, peace studies, sociology and international law, spent two days discussing pressing issues around deep sea mining in the Pacific, with an emphasis on debates in the Pacific Island Countries.
Participants shared ideas and insights on:
What is the current state of debates around DSM in the PICs?
Which actors have been shaping discourses on the deep sea resource frontier in the Pacific and crucially, what reality has been constructed, for what political purpose, and for what implications for the PICs and their communities?
Are such debates inclusive of the plurality of Pacific voices and indigenous approaches?
How are communities across the PICs intervening in the debate around whether the DSM venture should proceed and if so, what terms are they considering?
What opportunities are there to intervene and ‘shape’ debate given that commercial extraction has yet to get going?
What lessons can be learned from land mining across the Global South?
Scholars who attended look forward to the opportunity to build upon relationships established during the workshop and collaborate further on research into Deep Sea Mining in the Pacific.
In particular, participants are excited about the development of an upcoming special issue journal based on the discussions emerging from the workshop.