Paper short abstract:

A sonic sensory ethnography exploring interspecies tensions between lifeworlds around the Étang de Berre lagoon in Southern France and the anthropic pressures from its industrialized zones. The fieldwork aims to make tangible these sonic entanglements of nearly imperceptible pollution factors.

Paper long abstract:

Situated between Marseille and the Camargue nature reserve is a zone known as the Étang de Berre, taking its name from the sublime and enormous brackish lagoon that sits at its center. Over the last century, municipalities around the lagoon (Martigues, Fos-sur-mer, Saint-Chamas) along with the French government have invested heavily in petrochemical and energy industries making the area one of the most important economic hubs on one hand and an ecological sacrificial zone on the other. Anthropic impacts on this fragile ecosystem from air pollution and soil and water contamination have been only recently gaining attention. Human, plant, animal, and aquatic lifeworlds are entangled socially by these industrial toxins that are, for the most part, invisible and inaudible. How can we transmit these tainted, yet nearly imperceptible frequencies of this ethnographically complex territory? This sonic sensory ethnography attempts towards evoking these dilemmas and seeking out a way of sharing new kinds of anthropological knowledge.