Full Description
Coastal Futures explores the profound transformation of our relationship with the world's coasts, as nearly 40 percent of humanity now lives within 100 kilometers of the sea.
Moving beyond the traditional view of coasts as simple boundaries between land and water, this book reveals the coast as a diverse, networked landscape shaped by intertidal ecologies, sprawling infrastructures, and everyday practices that reach far beyond the shore. By uncovering the "coastalization" of society, the book highlights the growing significance of shores in understanding contemporary life and environmental change. Drawing on rich ethnographic research, the volume challenges traditional notions of the coast as simply a physical object or maritime boundary. Instead, it closely examines the diverse material forms and infrastructural connections that define coastal spaces, envisioning new futures for these vital zones.
Coastal Futures argues that a scientific inquiry into the dynamic interplay of society and coastlines is both urgent and essential, encouraging more responsible and imaginative ways of living with and on the coast. Ultimately, the book redeems the coast as a geo-ontological force—one that shapes, enables, and constrains the transformative energies of global assemblages, rather than serving as a passive backdrop to human activity.
Contents
Introduction: Life Amid the Brackish
Lukas Ley and Arne Harms
Experimentation: Experiments at the Frontiers of Land and Sea
Lukas Ley and Arne Harms
1. Safe, Adaptive, Resilient: A New Urban Coast
Stephanie Wakefield
2. Making Models Matter: On "Coastalizing" Ocean Modelling in the Netherlands
Jacqueline Ashkin
3. Thinking Like a Coast: The Making of Urban Futures in Semarang
Lukas Ley
Fortification: 'Sea Thinking' and the Coast as Living Shoreline
Lukas Ley and Arne Harms
4. Weathering the Sea: The Coast as Crumple Zone
Arne Harms
5. Maintaining the Coastline: Earth Work as Infrastructure in Bangkok's Vanishing Mangroves
Eli Elinoff
Encounter: How Humans and Non-Humans Live, Work, and Meet in the 'Brackish'
Lukas Ley and Arne Harms
6. Cultural Configurations in Cycles: Making Sense and Making Use of a (Mystical) Beach
Judith Schlehe
7. Estrangement and Reclaiming in the Thane Creek: Fisher Archives for Reimagining Mumbai's East Coast
Lalitha Kamath
8. Environmental Talk from the Abyss - How Scuba Divers Relate to Coastal Futures in Denmark
Rasmus Rodineliussen
