Article title:

Corals, solid-fluid materialities, and Anthropocene dwelling

Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary, Vol. 10 No. 2 (2023): Special Issue: The Anthropocene and
More-Than-Human World

Author:
Dr Justin Westgate, University of Auckland
Email: [email protected]
Abstract (211 words)

Continued reports of the Australian Great Barrier Reef’s peril signal not only a fraught politics
but the site’s significance as a potent global environmental imaginary and Anthropocene
signifier. In this paper I draw on the site’s ecological emergency and consider what humans
might learn from coral life through its evolved fluid-dynamic and planetary relationships. Corals,
I argue, offer novel insight into more-than-human ontologies, revealing constitutively solid-fluid
ways of being responsive to planetary flux and churn. The research responds to increased
interest with multi-disciplinary more-than-human investigation of the ways in which human and
nonhuman are inextricably connected, as well as work taking Anthropocene ideas as a
generative epistemological and ontological opening.
Drawing on fieldwork in Cairns and on the Reef itself, I document visceral encounters both
above and below the water as an aid to “flesh out” and bring depth to understanding this
expansive assemblage. Qualities of water and fluidity lead me to contemplate further
ontological unsettling that ocean phenomena bring to understanding planetary being, revealing
a dimensionality and relationality beyond surface and fixed readings. Paradoxically, whilst
corals and the Great Barrier Reef are commonly framed as needing our protection they
demonstrate enduring structural resilience and tenacity. Such qualities are highly relevant in
contemplating how to respond to Anthropocene instability and flux.

Keywords:
Great Barrier Reef, coral, solid-fluid materialities, Anthropocene
Main text:

Continued reports of the Australian Great Barrier Reef’s peril signal not only a fraught politics
but the site’s significance as a potent global environmental imaginary and Anthropocene
signifier. Threats such as pollution, overuse, invasive species, and warming ocean temperatures
have severely impacted Reef health. Where public discussion focuses on alarming reports of the
Reef’s death (Jacobsen, 2016; Wright and Watson, 2018; Purkis, 2021), marine scientists argue
the need for transformative marine ecosystem thinking and governance responsive to
Anthropocene conditions (Morrison et al., 2020). In this paper I focus on the Great Barrier
Reef’s disturbance with a different aim, drawing on more-than-human ontologies and the
mutable qualities of corals and pelagic life as a way to think through deceptively solid-fluid
Anthropocene materialities.
Recent Anthropocene scholarship has sparked unprecedented dialogues between practitioners
of earth sciences and the humanities which call into question and challenge the conventional
distinction between long-term geological processes and short-term human impacts. Yet, if
humans are indeed planetary-geological actors we have a hard time comprehending this due to
highly discordant scales and temporalities. Where vital materialism has enlivened once static
and inert conceptions of matter, kindred Anthropocene scholarship seeks to investigate geo-
planetary scale materialities and relationalities (Clark, 2012; 2017), as well as deceptive solid-
fluid constitutive qualities (Simonetti and Ingold, 2018; Ingold and Simonetti 2021). Yet, while
such work effectively extends human associations through geologic scales, in this article I
explore what humans might learn from coral life through its evolved fluid-dynamic material and
planetary relationships. Corals, I argue, offer novel insight into more-than-human ontologies,
revealing constitutively fluid ways of being in response to planetary flux and churn that we
humans might apply to Anthropocene dwelling.
The research responds to increased interest with multi-disciplinary more-than-human work
seeking to explore and characterise ways in which human and nonhuman are inextricably
connected (Whatmore, 2002; Haraway, 2008), as well as work engaging with collective
anthropogenic ecological crises to provocatively argue the Anthropocene as a generative
epistemological and ontological opening (Mickey, 2015; Adams, 2019).

A more-than-human Anthropocene
The Anthropocene is a newly proposed geological epoch in which human activity is argued to
have significant planetary influence (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000; Crutzen, 2002): disrupting
biochemical cycles, altering the distribution of living organisms, impacting biodiversity, and
creating material shifts in the stratigraphic record. Yet beyond its geo-physical influence the
Anthropocene has profound implications for social thought.
Work across arts, humanities, and social sciences explores such geo-planetary disturbances as
fundamentally social and human challenges (Palsson et al., 2013). Subsequently, Anthropocene
material disruption is argued to be mirrored ideologically, unsettling key tenets of modern
Western thought and upending established ideas of what it is to be human (Rose et al., 2012;
Steffen et al., 2011). This challenges longstanding beliefs that humans are separate from and
‘above’ the natural world, suggesting rather an ecological kinship which sees humanity as part
of a larger, interconnected living system.
In this way Anthropocene ideas align with – and are influenced by – more-than-human thinking.
The more-than-human proposal was intended to capture those worlds both encompassing and
surpassing human boundaries, integrating complex webs of interdependencies between
innumerous beings that share terrestrial dwelling (Abram, 1996); ultimately expanding and
reconfiguring the prevalent Modern human-nature dichotomy.
This article aligns itself with generative cultural responses to Anthopocene and more-than-
human thinking. Such work is broad and influenced by interdisciplinary currents from post-
phenomenology (Ash and Simpson, 2016), actor-network theory (Latour, 2005), non-
representational theories (Thrift, 2008), assemblage theory (DeLanda, 2006), new and vital
materialism (Coole and Frost, 2010; Bennett, 2010); eco-feminisms (de La Bellacasa, 2017;
Tsing, 2015), and post-humanisms (Haraway, 2008; 2016).
This research follows Haraway’s (2016) invocation of ‘staying with the trouble’; taking the
Anthropocene’s unsettling as a provocative invitation to re-think and re-imagine what it is to be
human, and – significantly – reassemble our relationships to each other and to other forms of
life. Such an approach prompts new narratives about the world both embodied and embedded
in human and more-than-human relational ontologies.
More specifically this article draws on cultural-geographic engagement with vital materialisms,
the more-than-human, and the geo-planetary. Such a combination is due to the unique and
hybrid qualities of corals. At a singular level corals have a fundamental relationship with water
and with the elements suspended within the medium. It is this relationship that, collectively,
allows corals to fabricate huge reef assemblages which serve as significant ecological features
for marine life. However, reefs are ultimately geological in character: large and durable enough
to become topographical features.
Vitalism is a philosophy that recognises the intrinsic matter-energy of the nonhuman world.
Inspired by the material turn geographers have attended to the vibrant, creative, and inventive
qualities of matter (Braun, 2008; Bennett, 2009; Whatmore, 2006; Bingham and Hinchliffe,
2008; Anderson and Wylie, 2009), and potentials to actively contribute to the constitution of
the world (Greenhough, 2010). Such interest in the ‘livingness’ of the non-human world (Choi
2016) has resulted in wide engagement with the more-than-human, leading geographers to
challenge prevalent humanist approaches to nature-society relations. Themes have included
biosecurity (Bingham, 2006; Buller, 2008; Hinchliffe and Bingham, 2008; Greenhough, 2012),
food (Stassart and Whatmore, 2003; Hayes-Conroy and Martin, 2010), animal geographies
(Cloke and Perkins, 2005; Bear and Eden, 2011; Barua, 2014) and conservation (Hinchliffe, 2008;
Lorimer and Driessen 2013; Lorimer 2015).
Significant for this article is a parallel strand of more-than-human investigation concerned with
significant planetary relationships. Responding to geo-planetary themes arising from
Anthropocene debates, such work reminds humans of their vulnerability as geological subjects.
Clark’s focus on elemental qualities of fire and planetary pyro-tectonics (Clark, 2012; Clark and
Yusoff, 2014;) is a reminder of the ‘inhuman’ forces outside human control; of planetary
geological asymmetries which find expression in boundary frictions between ‘human’ and
‘natural’ phenomena. Planetary fluctuations have the potential to unravel the fabric of human
culture, reminding us of the extra-human scales of the planet both spatial and temporal.
Ultimately, humans are geosocial subjects (Clark, 2017) – not just dwelling on the planet’s
surface but intimately enmeshed within geo-material and -temporal dynamics.
Corals, with their liquid, oceanic, as well as geological associations, offer analogous insight by
foregrounding deceptively ‘solid-fluid’ qualities of the world (Ingold and Simonetti, 2021).
Western science’s desire to produce hard facts discords with more varied and inconstant
realities (Simonetti 2019). While Western thinking has accepted the world’s dynamism, being in
constant change and flux, scientific analysis may still default to concrete and fixed states of
being (Anderson and Wylie, 2009). We are better to consider the world in com-position
(Haraway, 2015): dynamically in a state of perpetual becoming; neither solid not fluid, but
rather solid-becoming-fluid or fluid-becoming-solid (Serres, 2018). Coral’s pelagic attachment
invites us to expand fixed and terrestrial-based thinking (especially for geographers), and draw
on growing interest with liquid and fluid ontologies (Anderson and Peters, 2014; Steinberg and
Peters, 2015). Thinking ‘from’ or ‘through’ the ocean – it’s three-dimensionality, its dynamic
and liquid qualities – opens up spatial conceptions of the world that, far from being static and
bounded, is rather fluctuating, changeable, processual, and in a constant state of becoming.

Approach and methodology

This article draws on work undertaken for doctoral research. The larger project itself was
couched in both experimental and non-representational geographies, taking interest with
embodied and intangible aspects of lived Anthropocene experience. Within experimental
geographies researchers undertake conceptual and methodological experiments with the aim
of exploring new modes of doing geography (see Paglen, 2009; Instone, 2010; Last, 2012). And,
while diverse in scope, non-representational research encompasses work that “seeks to better
cope with our self-evidently more-than-human, more-than-textual, multisensual worlds”
(Lorimer, 2005: 83), and with registers often exceeding representation (Longhurst et al., 2009).
A framework of Anthropcoene dwelling draws on Ingold’s (2007; 2011; 2015) interest with
dynamic qualities of being in the world, and with tracing the movement of things through the
world. “Wayfaring” for Ingold is an extension of Heidegger’s more static conception of dwelling.
A focus on movement brings a vitality to dwelling where pathway becomes the primary
condition of being rather than place.
Fundamentally, research took up the challenge of witnessing Anthropocene phenomena;
remaining exposed to a complex, multi-scalar phenomenon. Such a stance, in non-
representational terms, invites a researcher to be ‘in tune [with] the vitality of the world as it
unfolds’ (Dewsbury, 2003: 1923), where one’s independent subjectivity is always in relation
with the other (Ettinger, 2006). Within the emergency of the Anthropocene Jean-Luc Nancy
(2015) calls this remaining “exposed”: allowing ourselves to endure encounters of catastrophic
loss by allowing ourselves to sense it.
In practical terms this led me to investigate sites with capacity to disturb Modern and Holocene
perspectives and illuminate unsettled, relational, and coexistential qualities. Visiting the Great
Barrier Reef during a severe coral bleaching event served as a case study. Fieldwork, therefore,
was ethnographic in style, drawing from Ingold’s approach to mobile ethnography: taking
interest in more than subjects’ movements in the world but also the researcher’s “co-present
immersion”, where they not only observe what is happening but are also required to attend to
their own experiences and feelings of moving through the world (see Novoa, 2015). An interest
in mobilities has resulted from shifting academic concern with the metaphysics of fixity to that
of flow (Cresswell, 2006), and with the fluid, dynamic, and non-linear qualities of the world are
made increasingly relevant by Anthropocene ideas. Within this article I use experience as an
entry point into relational ontologies, and from there through to contemplating the fluid and
oceanic constitutive properties of coral biology.
Such an interpretive approach to research comes with limitations. When reflecting on in-field
experiences I do so from my own position: as an individual attempting to interpret and make
meaning within a wider worldly-mesh. My experience of being human is informed by my
subjectivity as a European heterosexual male, middle-aged, and well-educated. Such categorical
positioning does not fully address personal nuance, difference or inconsistencies, nonetheless, I
acknowledge my own complicities and privileges. I also apply critical and reflexive process, and
seek to avoid inflating my experience and interpretation, or misrepresenting other
perspectives. However, alongside such personal attachments, I bring the foregrounded
openness to being exposed, to possibility and, importantly, a willingness to step into the fray
and tumult stirred up by the Anthropocene.
Further, my concern with the Anthropocene is more conceptual than it is material or political.
By this I mean that among the wide-ranging constellation of Anthropocene interrogation
(Lorimer, 2016) spanning geo-physical, environmental-ecological, political-economic, and
cultural spheres, my interest sits within the latter. I am interested in creative and conceptual
potentials that ideas and responses provoke (Davis and Turpin, 2015); particularly possibilities
to re-story the world (Davidson, 2015) and to unsettle and expand human sense and
relationalities (Haraway, 2015; Morton, 2010) through to geo-planetary kinship (Clark, 2011;
2017).
In the case of the Great Barrier Reef, I am also mindful of the long relationship – some 60,000
years – Aboriginal peoples have had with the region and feature. And of a body of
Anthropocene work seeking to decolonise and incorporate indigenous knowledge and voices
within debates (see Todd, 2016; Szerszynski, 2017). Somewhat surprisingly, for this significant
ecological feature, there appears to very little research which explicates Australian Aboriginal
understandings and histories,1 and only a nascent body of work seeking to bring this to
Anthropocene debates (for example see Bignall et al., 2016; Wright, 2020). While I am
supportive of such endeavours, and the task of bringing alternative ontologies to bear on
human experience, my focus here is with approaching this through foregrounded more-than-
human and creative-conceptual dimensions of Anthropocene inquiry.
To begin, I introduce the Great Barrier Reef, its composition, as well as the current plight of
corals. I then briefly document visceral encounters both above and below the water as a way to
“flesh out” and bring depth to this expansive structure and wider relational mesh. Qualities of
water and fluidity lead me to contemplate ontological unsettling that ocean phenomena bring
to understanding planetary being, revealing a dimensionality and relationality beyond surface
and fixed readings. I then return to consider the insight coral’s constitutive qualities brings to
contemplating and configuring resilient responses to Anthropocene dwelling

Locating the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest of the world’s coral reef ecosystems, made up of more
than 2,900 individual reefs and some 900 islands that border the coast of north-eastern
Australia (see Figure 1), spanning over 2,300 kilometres and covering some 344,000 square
kilometres (GBRMPA, 2021a). The Reef is big – hence the name – and accounts for 70 percent
of the world’s designated World Heritage reef area. It is also the single largest structure made
by living organisms.

Figure 1: map of north-eastern Australia showing the location of the Great Barrier Reef Marine
Park. The reef systems show as dark against the blue of the ocean. Satellite imagery: Google
Earth/CNES/Astrium Image Landsat/Copernicus.

Coral reefs are biologically diverse, supporting more species per unit of area than any other
marine environment. Some 25 percent of all marine species live in coral reefs, including an
estimated 4,000 species of fish, 800 species of hard corals, and hundreds of other marine
animals (Mulhall, 2009; Fuchs, 2013). Reefs are also important for sea and marine birds, as well
as reptiles such as snakes, crocodiles, and turtles. Crucially, reef formations serve as a
protective breeding ground for many ocean-going fish and marine life.
Corals are found predominately in tropical regions, growing in warm shallow waters. Corals are
colonies of small animals that live in calcium carbonate shells formed for protection. Over time,
accretion of limestone forms unique shapes distinctive to particular coral species. Reefs are
formed over long time periods as corals slowly form layers of sedimentary limestone.
Depending on size, reef formation can take anywhere between 100,000 and 30 million years
(Barnes and Hughes, 1999; Veron, 2017).
The Great Barrier Reef has formed over hundreds of millions of years in different stages, with
the current configuration emerging approximately 2.6 million years ago (Veron, 2008). Human
interaction with the Reef environment began some 60,000 years ago when Australian
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples settled the region, taking advantage of the site’s
natural resources (GBRMPA, 2021b). European explorers characterised the Reef environment
as “wild” and “unnavigable” (see McCalman, 2013), with utilisation of the area’s natural
amenities being only a recent endeavour. Recreational use began only in the latter half of the
twentieth century and is governed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA)
which now manages the marine park in conjunction with the Government of Queensland.
The Great Barrier Reef has become a significant environmental imaginary and tourist
destination. Being awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1981, conferred “as being
important to the collective interests of humanity” (UNESCO, 2016), set the Reef on a global
stage alongside other landmark sites including the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, Machu Picchu in
Peru, and the Taj Mahal in India. The Reef has become a “bucket-list” travel destination (Condé
Nast Traveller, 2020), and is highly significant to Australian tourism – being worth some A$6.4
billion to the Australian economy, and generating over 64,000 jobs (Deloitte Access Economics,
2017).
Concerns with Reef health and management began in the early twentieth century and were
amplified by rising environmental awareness during the 1960s and 70s. Even with a unified Reef
management plan and instigation of the GBRMPA, the conservative tenor of Queensland
politics has continued to undervalue environmental concerns, support resource exploitation, as
well as expanded Queensland coastal development.
Such exploitation, however, poses a threat to the Reef’s World Heritage status, and at multiple
times over the last decade an “in danger” reclassification has been assessed and only narrowly
avoided – controversially due to Australian Government lobbying tactics (Readfearn, 2021). The
Reef remains officially under watch, with the World Heritage Committee requiring updates on
the Reef’s condition.
However, more concerning over the last few decades is the global threat of planetary warming.
Increased ocean temperatures have led to a series of severe coral bleaching events during
summer months. “Bleaching” describes a condition where coral tissue turns pale or white. It is
not a disease but a stress response where the coloured zooxanthellae photosynthetic algae that
live in the coral wall are expelled. Under adverse conditions, such as increased water
temperature, the algae produce excess oxygen which is toxic to the coral. Bleached coral is not
dead: coral can survive for a short period in a bleached state and recover if the stress is
removed (Dove and Hoegh-Guldberg, 2006). However, prolonged bleaching will kill the coral.
Coral bleaching is not unique to the Great Barrier Reef, all corals experience bleaching under
adverse conditions. The phenomenon was first recorded in the Caribbean in the early 1980s,
with bleaching events at the Great Barrier Reef occurring during 1980, 1982, 1992, 1994, 1998,
2002, 2006, 2016-2017 (AIMS, 2016) – as well as 2020. Coral bleaching appears to be a recent
(and anthropogenic) phenomenon given that bleaching events have killed coral shown to be up
to 500 years old (Veron, 2008: 58). Reef recovery from coral bleaching die-off takes decades,
but with bleaching events forecast to become an annual occurrence (Bleuel the al., 2021) the
prognosis for the Great Barrier Reef looks grim. And it was this forecast that in 2016 prompted
alarming reports of the Reef’s death (see Jacobsen, 2016).

See it before it’s too late

I undertook fieldwork in late-2017 – springtime in Australia, and at the end of the busy winter
tourism season in the tropical north given cooler, drier, and more settled conditions. Based in
Cairns, a key access point to the Great Barrier Reef, my aim was to canvass activity, undertake
participant observation and interviews.
During my visit, something curious that struck me was that everything seemed normal. Tourism
marketing invited visitors to have an amazing experiences swimming, snorkelling, diving, and
holidaying on the Reef. However, this was at a time of one of the most severe coral bleaching
events to date, yet the only public evidence of this was through occasional news articles.
Similarly, information of wider ecological threats were also absent in marketing or
informational literature.
Spending time on a dive boat on the Reef, I talked with other visitors gaining insight into their
motivations and perceptions. People were well aware of the Reef as a unique marine
environment; it was a “must do” when visiting Australia and the key drawcard for visiting
Cairns. However, there appeared to be a lack of understanding of the Reef’s ecological
significance or indeed the specific threats faced. Though, ironically, many I spoke with revealed
subconscious anxieties. One well-travelled Brit living and working in Sydney half-jokingly
admitted she’d “like to see the Reef before it’s too late!” Another young visitor had been gifted
a diving trip by her father – a keen scuba diver – but admitted she felt somewhat uneasy
because of the environmental impact. Such anecdotes are reflective of increasing “last-chance
tourism”, which has become a key motivator for visiting the Reef (Piggott-McKellar and
McNamara, 2016).
My time on the dive boat provided insights both above and below the water. Above, however,
the vast planar landscape gave little indication of the complex topography below the water line
(See figure 2.). Boats dotted the horizon, some still, fixed to the reef below as permanent on-
water accommodation; others moved slowly across the water, making their way to designated
dive sites or shuttling visitors to and from Cairns. The calm above was occasionally interrupted
by the sound of a helicopter ferrying well-heeled visitors across the Reef.
Figure 2: The stark above-water landscape. A crew member watches over snorkelers. Another
dive boat is visible in the background. Source: author.

Dive boats operate to a tight schedule, receiving new passengers, navigating a set pattern of
dive spots, providing food and dive briefings. My boat ran five dives per day for stay-on visitors
and received boatloads of day-visitors every morning who were ferried back to the mainland
later the same afternoon.
The crew were familiar with each dive site, able to point out individual features for divers to
investigate: a hidden channel; a large clam; the site where clownfish could be found; the
habitual swimming path of a sea turtle. Animated post-dive discussion centred largely around
notable encounters with charismatic marine fauna – fish, turtles, sharks – and crossing these off
a diver’s wish list (See Figure 3).
I noticed that for all the concern with seeing particular species of marine life there was no
formal time spent discussing any aspect of marine biology or the Reef ecosystem. During our
introductory tour we were shown the location of the boat’s “library”, a small collection of
reference books which could be used to identify marine species if needed. Additionally, there
was no discussion had about current issues affecting the Reef and no mention at all about
recent coral bleaching.
Figure 3: Divers are given a pre-dive briefing on the top deck by the crew. Source: author.

A fluid marine mesh

During my time on the Reef I had the opportunity to “dive” multiple times – although for
simplicity I opted to snorkel rather than scuba dive as it afforded more flexibility and freed me
from technological constraints and air supply limitations.
Conditions at the time were perfect: a pleasant 24 degrees Celsius, slight overhead cloud, and
still. The ocean temperature was as warm as the air. The water was a very deep, hazy blue,
which limited visibility to about 20 metres before details blurred into a blue nothing. Very
otherworldly.
Each dive site is a unique assemblage formed by layers of accreted calcium carbonate covered
by living coral and other marine life. A coral outcrop is given the term “bommie”. In shallow
water this can be a small or large mound and in deeper water can rise like a column from the
sea floor below. The average depth of the Great Barrier Reef is just 35 meters, and corals have
been able to form because of the shallow coastal topography.
For each dive location I focused on a single bommie, swimming around the site first and then
literally floating over the top, remaining still to observe activity. The mesh of life was
fascinating. It felt very alien to me being both a land-based creature and schooled largely in
terrestrial geographical concerns. Of course, in this instance, I was very much the alien (See
figure 4).
Figure 4: View of coral assemblage, top of bommie. Source: author.

And even though observations were made during the day, which is not a particularly active time
for reef life, I found it fascinating watching everyday reef dramas unfold. Small fish
manoeuvring themselves close to coral, likely for safety, while larger fish slowly cruised the
underwater landscape indifferent to my presence. I watched sharp-beaked Parrot fish snack on
living coral, hearing muffled crunching sounds. I observed smaller fish perform what seemed to
be territorial behaviour, chasing away encroaching intruders. Over time I began to see each
coral bommie as a community of creatures, some making permanent homes amongst
labyrinthine coral formations, others just passing through.
I remained vigilant for signs of bleached and dead coral, although sited only one small patch of
dead coral during my dives (Figure 5). This may have been because the worst bleaching had
occurred in the Reef’s northern reaches north of Cairns, but also dive boats might have
adjusted tours to avoid heavily impacted areas.
Figure 5: A small patch of bleached and possibly dead branching coral (Acropora species)
encountered during one of the author’s dive sessions. Source: author.
This short sampling of Reef-related activity both human and non-human left me with fuller
appreciation of the dynamic assemblage of life that constitutes this distinctive and complex
ecosystem. And, although my purpose was research focused, I couldn’t help feeling moved by
the experience. From my time in the water, what remained poignant were seemingly mundane
observations. Witnessing simple acts such as fish foraging for food, scouting territory or hiding
within coral crannies, and even the less-discernible activity of clams and corals themselves, left
me with expanded empathy for the delicately entangled lines that constitute the ecological
mesh of Reef life. While alien in many ways, animal marine life retains recognisable and
relatable qualities through shared “fleshy” constituencies, making shared vulnerabilities to
insidious environmental threats more tangible. I am better able to conceive my entangled
relationship with the lives of these beings amidst the larger delicate Reef-mesh; and I am struck
by how fragile and precarious this fabric seems.
Additionally, was a sense of intimate dimensionality. Within the marine environment the liquid
medium afforded a more immersive and visceral experience. This is both feeling like one enters
physically into the environmental space, extending one’s relationship with others through the
more tangible surrounding medium. For example, I became mindful that the sunscreen applied
to my skin might transfer through the water and affect other marine life. A small concern on
the scale of impacts to be sure, but one which enlivens a sense of wider interconnectedness.
The challenged status of the Great Barrier Reef – and indeed all coral reef ecosystems – reflect
embeddedness within wider planetary systems and mesh. In this way we don’t have to visit the
site in person to impact it, any activity we undertake will have some small effect impacting
wider planetary systems. Consequently, we can’t not visit the Reef.
Such observations of dimensionality and interconnectedness are useful starting points,
however, I want to expand these to consider dimensional-fluid, as well as resilient qualities of
coral life, which have successfully navigated epochal planetary fluctuations across hundreds of
millions of years.

Sea-change thinking
Following vital materialism’s focus on the dynamic qualities of matter, geographical attention
has turned to liquid, ocean spaces which, historically, have been marginalised by concerns with
fixed terrestrial space. Given most human activity rarely strays far from coastal margins, oceans
have been perceived as vacant or empty (Steinberg, 1999); simply voids to be traversed in the
pursuit of capital gain (Steinberg, 2001) or unruly spaces to be controlled for terrestrial
expansion (see Law, 1986; Ogborn, 2002).
The terrestrial bias in geographic thinking has resulted in a categorical divide between land and
sea, conceptualised as opposing binaries. Land is the default position, the ground or bedrock of
knowability: firm, solid, grounded. Ocean space, by contrast has been construed as a non-
space, expansive and inherently unknowable (see Shields, 1992), consequently ungrounded,
wavering, or “at sea”. Such sea-change spatial conceptions follow the deficiencies of Cartesian
linear and mechanistic thinking (see Massey, 2004), and growing recognition that worldly
phenomena are not only more complex and interconnected than previously imagined, but
ultimately fluid and inconstant (Ingold and Simonetti, 2021): even mountains have flow.
Focusing on corals – a form of marine life – draws us into the dimensionality and liquidity of
ocean space. Such fluid space has volume, unevenness, and irregularity, with boundaries not
well bordered or defined, physically or ideologically. Far from being empty or vacant it is,
rather, a dynamic relational medium: it is within and through the water that most activity
occurs – not above its surface. I unconsciously recognised this in noticing the barren above-
water Great Barrier Reef landscape: the real draw is the extraordinary below-water
phenomenon.
Water is also a medium in constant motion, having an ability to move freely and transform that
solid matter does not. Ocean spaces are manifestly dynamic, having changeable forms shaped
by tidal fluctuations, storm surges and tsunamis, as well as deep-sea currents. It is a medium
responsive to planetary energies: from still calm to churning waves; tepid tropical temperatures
to icy and frozen Arctic seas.
The ocean’s “wet” (Steinberg and Peters, 2015) or “fluid” ontology (Anderson and Peters, 2014)
effectively counters terrestrially centred thinking. Thinking “from” or “through” the ocean – it’s
three-dimensionality, its dynamic and liquid qualities – opens up spatial conceptions of the
world that, far from being static and bounded, is rather fluctuating, changeable, processual, and
in a constant state of becoming.
With both liquid-oceanic and rocklike geologic qualities, corals provide a fascinating example of
organic solid-fluid enfoldment. Such attributes are admittedly difficult to discern prima facie
and require a broader understanding of coral biology and its evolution. And, to better
appreciate the solid-fluid character of the Great Barrier Reef necessitates looking beyond the
visible present and examining wider geologic attachments and through deep time.

Corals. Change. Fluidity.

The Reef we know today has been shaped by ongoing geological processes also responsible for
current continental land formations and oceans (Veron, 2008). Fossil remains of corals that
grew from 120 to 30 million years ago can be found in the Reef’s present location. Such corals
formed during geological epochs with favourable warm conditions but were interrupted by
periods of glacial climatic conditions. Stable conditions only returned 2.6 million years ago at
the beginning of the Pleistocene, allowing corals to grow and again form reef structures.
Formation of the Great Barrier Reef we are familiar with today appears to have begun around
some 600,000 years ago (Pandolfi and Kelley, 2008: 40).
Even within the recent stable period ongoing natural oscillations have altered the shape of the
Reef. Climatic fluctuations – notably ice ages – impacted the Reef’s biological composition due
to cooler water temperatures but, more dramatically, changes in sea levels forced coral
formations to relocate (Pandolfi and Kelley, 2008: 41). For around 50 percent of this recent
period sea levels were much lower, and the area of the Great Barrier Reef now covered with
shallow water was dry, existing as scrub-covered plain. The coast lay further east than present
with corals surviving in coastal waters. As sea levels subsequently rose over thousands of years
and reclaimed the plain, corals re-established themselves. For the other approximately 30
percent of time, the Reef site was a mix of coral reefs and islands in an interstitial state. For
only 10-20 percent of the Reef’s recent history would it have looked like it does now.
Thus, the Reef we see today is the result of very recent sea level stabilisation. Sea levels
reached their most-recent low 20,000 years ago: some 130 metres below today’s levels. It then
took over 10,000 years for sea levels to return to present-day height (a level that last existed
some 120,000 years ago) and thousands of years for current coral formations to re-establish
themselves (Veron, 2008: 156). The present configuration of the Great Barrier Reef is,
therefore, very recent in geological terms: only some 6,000 years old (Wallace, 2008) and,
significantly, it is far from being either stable or permanent.
Importantly, corals exhibit resilient qualities shaped by adaptation to their fluid and ever-
changing ocean environment. Over their 500-plus million years of existence corals have had to
cope with highly varied conditions: times of boom and bust. Long favourable periods have been
followed by mass extinction events during which many species did not survive. Corals existing
today are the survivors of half-a-billion years of extreme planetary fluctuations and have
managed to do so only because of an evolved genetic plasticity. And, corals have not only been
shaped by such ongoing environmental stresses but by the fluid medium in which they live,
relying on ocean currents for reproductive dispersal (Todd, 2008). A coral species may “break
apart” if currents are insufficient to disperse coral spawn widely enough, having the ability to
become many different species due to a hybrid genetic composition. Conversely, a species may
also “reform” when currents are favourable, bringing together spawn of the same species. This
genetic re-packaging process is termed reticulate evolution and differs markedly from
traditional Darwinian evolution. While such hybridisation is not completely unique it provides a
mechanism by which a bounded population is able to make the most of a limited genetic pool
and adapt to new conditions more effectively than by random mutation alone2 (Arnold, 1997).
The mechanism has allowed corals to survive ongoing fluctuations by, in effect, mimicking the
unstable and fluid qualities of their environment, meaning that, if stressed, corals are able to
respond to changing conditions and, over time, adapt.

Solid-fluidity and Anthropocene dwelling

Such biological fluidity has not been lost on those concerned with marine life and coral reef
health. Researchers are actively investigating coral’s genetic plasticity aiming to increase
resilience to adverse environmental conditions. Human-assisted evolution seeks to accelerate
corals’ ability to hybridise and adapt given that environmental changes are occurring at a much
faster rate than normal, investigating such mechanisms as coral stress conditioning, assisted
gene flow, hybridisation, and symbiont algal modification (Cornwall, 2019). Additionally, the
complexities of marine ecosystems management within the Anthropocene’s new normal is
being recognised, which involves considering multi-faceted and variable interactions between
multiple interventions. Effective multiscale governance calls for multiple governing authorities
at different scales that are engaged in self-organisation and mutual adjustment (Morrison et al.,
2020). Yet, even if such management approaches and coral hybridisation prove effective the
Great Barrier Reef will be dramatically changed, becoming compositionally altered. The shape
and location of the Reef will also adjust in response to circumstances beyond control: climate
and weather fluctuations, rising sea levels, unanticipated ecosystem interactions.
The vast, seemingly solid and static reef assemblage we see belies its relational complexity and
fluidity: corals and coral reefs are anything but fixed. They are both agents of geologic assembly
and responsive to geologic processes and vast planetary and temporal dynamics. The genetic
fluidity of corals is perhaps their most surprising feature. While not fully oceanic, corals are
shaped by the movements and dynamics of oceans. Far from existing in a world that is fixed
they have resourcefully navigated their way through the rhythmic turbulence of an inherently
dynamic world.
Corals are a reminder of our geo-sociality; not just all life’s interdependence but ways in which
we humans are shaped – and will continue to be – by planetary fluctuations over which we may
be powerless to control. As with coral’s, malleability may prove crucial for how humans think
about dwelling within an Anthropocene world.
The solid-fluidity of the Great Barrier Reef is, ultimately, a reminder of the world’s eternal flux.
Some two thousand years ago, Roman poet-philosopher Titus Lucretius argued that things
existed in the world only because of slight deviations in the flux of matter – shadows of sorts in
the ongoing passage of matter which we mortals perceive as solid objects. This is why, Lucretius
tells us, despite the indubitable agitation of its material constitutes, “the universe itself seems
to be standing still” (Lucretius, 2007: 45). Where Modern inquiry has sought fixed and firm
explanations for the worldly phenomena, more recent attentiveness to matter’s vitality and the
world’s wider complexity and dynamism returns us to acknowledging Lucretius’ insight. The
Anthropocene’s moniker, as Clark (2011) reminds us, is deceptive: while humans may have the
ability to impact planetary systems and composition, we are by no means in control.
Significantly, Anthropocene geo-planetary concerns extend thinking beyond human scales,
bringing focus to agencies previously overlooked. From the planet’s intrinsic dynamism to
matter’s inherent vitality, we are reminded of more-than-human capacities in play.
Fluidity and state-change dynamics become useful frames for thinking about Anthropocene
conditions. Fluid and liquid conceptions of space and matter move beyond a concern with
surface and penetrate through the depth, volume, and inherent unevenness that constitutes
the material world and essential planetary dynamics. Rejecting the terrestrial and Euclidean
bias for thinking about space as fixed, firm and knowable, “fluid” ontology reconceives space as
more than simply a flat surface or a plot of points and lines, but inherently dynamic, having
volume, unevenness and irregularity, with blurred boundaries both physically and ideologically.
Such vertical and dimensional thinking brings an unsettling intricacy to contemplating
phenomena beyond the surface, where energies and impacts reverberate through ground in all
directions, materialising in unexpected locations and forms. Thinking “from” or “through” the
three-dimensional, dynamic and liquid volume opens up spatial conceptions of the world that,
far from being static and bounded, are fluctuating, changeable, and processual. Nothing is
simply solid or fluid but both, either solid-becoming-fluid or fluid-becoming-solid; a reminder
that the world is in a constant state of becoming.
Ultimately, the Great Barrier Reef of today is different from yesterday and will be different
again tomorrow. Within the Anthropocene it is, problematically, human influence which
precipitates divergent conditions; accelerating disturbance to marine life which indeed brings
“death” to the Reef familiar to modern humans. Such demise, therefore, relates more to an
imagined state of the world – namely that built upon fixed and stable Holocene attachments.
And, it is a world modern humans need to learn how to relinquish.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Steve Turton, Richard Kenchington, and Quentin Hanich for time taken to
discuss this topic with me, as well as those I met diving on the Reef. Thanks also to doctoral
supervisors, Chris Gibson, Lesley Head, and Anja Kanngieser. This research was conducted with
the support of an Australian Government Research Training Programme Scholarship.
List of figures

Figure 1: map of north-eastern Australia showing the location of the Great Barrier Reef Marine
Park. The reef systems show as dark against the blue of the ocean. Satellite imagery: Google
Earth/CNES/Astrium Image Landsat/Copernicus.

Figure 2: The stark above-water landscape. A crew member watches over snorkelers. Another
dive boat is visible in the background. Source: author.

Figure 3: Divers are given a pre-dive briefing on the top deck by the crew. Source: author.

Figure 4: View of coral assemblage, top of bommie. Source: author.

Figure 5: A small patch of bleached and possibly dead branching coral (Acropora species)
encountered during one of the author’s dive sessions. Source: author.
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Endnotes
1 During fieldwork I noted of a distinct lack of Aboriginal histories and perspectives
presented either in marketing literature, or within tourism or education experiences. However,
stories collected from the region, such as those of the Yidindji people of the Cairns area, recalls
a time when the ancestors of these people lived at the coast where the Great Barrier Reef now
stands, chronicling the land being inundated by the ocean. A study by Nunn and Reid (2016)
examined such oral histories, suggesting these document changes brought about by the end of
the last ice age, some 13,000 years ago, and subsequent coastal transformation. Such
narratives reveal a consistent pattern of adapting and sense-making, living amidst uncertainty
on an ever-changing earth-ocean interface over thousands of years.
2 Such hybridisation also comes with negative consequences to a genetic pool: it can
allow undesirable genes into the pool, or reproductive sterility.