Paper short abstract:

What do we perceive of anthropogenic pressures underwater? This presentation examines the potential of underwater sounds to describe human presences, and to question the perceptions of marine pollution by different actors, offshore the industrial-port of Marseille metropolis and a National Park.

Paper long abstract:

What do we perceive of anthropogenic pressures underwater? This paper examines the potential of sounds to unveil multi-species interactions under the surface, and to question the perceptions of marine pollution, offshore the industrial port metropolis and a National Park, in trouble with massive tourism.

At sea, humans, cargo ships, cables, fishes, invertebrates and algae circulate, entangle and aggregate in invisible and inaudible ways (Tsing, 2013).

This paper presents the preliminary findings of an ongoing multimodal and interdisciplinary research project (Preshumer) on interactions with more-than-human beings, with a primary focus on sounds perspectives (Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010, Barry 2021).

This research examines the perceptions and representations of multispecies interactions in a context of direct and indirect anthropogenic impacts in the Gulf of Marseille - varied pollutions, exogen species invasion, mass mortality due to underwater heat waves, extension of activities increasing noise - but also in a context of “nature based” programs of care and restoration.

How sound approaches un/redo anthropology to move beyond a human-centred perspective toward interdependences and entangled relationships with marine creatures?

Attempting to adopt a “wet ontology” (Steinberg & Peters 2015) and approaching marine interactions through sounds at sea, challenges sensitive perception of space, time, human, non-human and life (Helmreich 2015).

Through methodological experimentation at sea, mobilizing hydrophones, go-pro cameras and collaborative approaches of audio recordings, this paper explores how modification of perceptions at sea displaces researchers and actors and engage them in new forms of relationality (Feld 2010) with elusive living beings.