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Paper short abstract

The paper conceptualises ‘sea blindness’ as an artefact of colonial influence in marine spaces materialised through contemporary regimes of extraction, governance and labour. It situates this analysis in the intensifying opposition to the aquarium fishery on the east side of Hawaii's Big Island.

Paper long abstract

This paper conceptualises ‘sea blindness’ as an artefact of colonial influence in Hawaii, now materialized in fragmented ocean governance regimes that continue to subvert Kanaka ‘Oiwi ways of knowing and living with the sea, to extractivist imperatives. I focus on the aquarium fishery on the east side of Hawaii’s Big Island; a high value inshore fishery supplying saltwater reef fish to aquaria hobbyists worldwide. Placed under a moratorium in 2017, the fishery faces intensifying opposition as the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DNLR) deliberates issuing seven new commercial licenses. The paper considers how ‘high-stake fields of sea knowledges’ produced through the moratorium era have revealed the fishery, creating uneasy alliances as well as anti-extractivist solidarities. The global supply trade in marine aquarium species, an industry whose estimated retail value is US2.15 billion, however, remains largely opaque.

Then, turning to the materiality of aquaria, I consider how the removal of organisms from natural habits for human spectatorship, is realigned with a particular epistemological and ideological taming (Hawyard 2012) to mobilise blue stewardship and ocean citizenship potentials. Sustainability and conservation, in this synopsis, render oceans visible while disavowing the injuries sustained through ongoing practices of marine extractivism.