Framing Deep Sea Mining in/with Oceania

Childs, John (2026) Framing Deep Sea Mining in/with Oceania. The Extractive Industries and Society, 27: 101932. ISSN 2214-790X

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Abstract

Although deep sea mining (DSM) can be understood in global terms, much of its emergent politics has been centred in an Oceanian context. This is evident for both mineral exploration at the abyssal plain of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone and the debates over deep sea resource extraction in the Exclusive Economic Zones of several Pacific Island Countries. However, despite this empirical focus on the region, there has yet to be a sustained theoretical engagement with DSM as it relates to the specific geographies, histories and cultural perspectives that shape relations with the deep ocean. Against this background, this paper offers a conceptual framework that centres the unique onto-epistemological perspectives of island communities and the negotiations that they perform in the face of the capitalist development and expansion of a DSM ‘frontier’ in Oceania. It highlights an ever-relevant reckoning with the forces of colonialism and thinks through the commonalities and divergences between diverse cultural and spiritual positions as they come together with the political, technological and economic imperatives of the DSM industry. Is it possible to build solidarities between this philosophical diversity in the region that can recast and shape the debates on DSM, especially at a time before commercial extraction has begun in earnest?