Saputra, M. A., Novianti, K., Thufail, F. I., and Sammler, K. G. (2026). The paradox of sensing: Indonesian seabed mining sense-ability and insensitivity to benthic habitat degradation.
Geoforum, 174:104674.
Open access for 90 days here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718526001429?dgcid=coauthor (until July 09, 2026)
Highlights
- The sensing apparatus creates the paradox of sensing: the convergence of sense-ability and insensitivity.
- The paradox of sensing is defined occurs by making geologic materials sense-able while bracketing out benthic habitats.
- Ethnographic data links practices of embodied sensing to mechanical sensors, contributing to critical sensing theory.
Abstract
With global industries intensifying the search for critical minerals, seafloor sensing has become fundamental to envisioning the seabed as a new extractive frontier. While existing science and technology studies (STS) and critical geography scholarship have explored how sensing practices in marine conservation cultivate ecological sensitivity, this paper showcases and theorises a paradox of sensing: the convergence of sense-ability and insensitivity in seabed mining operations. Using an in-situ ethnographic approach to offshore tin mining operations off the Bangka and Belitung islands, Indonesia, the study demonstrates how the sensing apparatus makes senseable seabed minerals while simultaneously bracketing the damage to benthic habitats caused by offshore tin extraction. By enacting an agential cut, the sensing apparatus renders the diverse benthic lifeworld into nothing more than a seabed mine site. This empirical and theoretical contribution invites human geography and STS scholars to scrutinise the mutual shaping between measuring instruments and geological materials in future deep-seabed mining, highlighting how the material effects of the seafloor sensing practices shape both environmental outcomes and governance regimes.
saltygeographies 