Book Review.
Helmreich, Stefan. Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. Xvii, 403 pp. illus. bibliogr. London, Berkeley: Univ. California Press, 2009. £21.95 (print)
C. Marwick
University of Aberdeen
In Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas, author Stefan Helmreich takes the reader on a journey divulging the developing relationship that exists between humans and the ocean, in an elegantly written book. “The life-taking and life-giving ocean also embodied a dualistic femininity, alternatively maternal and witchlike” . The essence of his primary argument is that discoveries in the relatively new field of marine microbial science are altering the definition of life. In particular he analyses bio-politics, scientific…show more content… Although marine biology is often portrayed as a very positive field, he discusses how bio-politics and lucrative bio-capital are changing the nature of marine science whilst making the ocean vulnerable to financial exploitation and pollution. Microbes are beginning to manifest as valuable economic and legal tender between countries and organisations as is shown in chapter “Blue-green Capitalism”. An example of this is when Helmreich shifts his beloved “alien” analogy from the microorganisms of the seafloor and onto J. Craig Venter who is an ‘alien invader’ (a non-scientist) with ‘his scheme to sequence the microbial DNA of the world’s oceans” even although according to microbiologists his strategy is scientifically inaccurate. It seems he cares more about the fame and fortune, than the biology. Helmreich continues this theme in chapter “Abducting the Atlantic” where he suggests that the ocean (a historically powerful and liberating body) is being ‘abducted’ by scientists, laws and money. He amplifies concerns expressed by conservation institutions such as the Canadian Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC) Group, saying “the connections among sampling, sequencing, archiving, publishing, and patenting [of marine microbes] is more tenuous than ETC’s commentary
