When: Friday, March 22, 2013 at 12:30pm
Where: H-1269
“The Nomad and the Whale”
Max Ritts, PhD Candidate
Department of Geography
University of British Columbia
Abstract:
Working to listen and listening to work — such is the daily routine of the Cetacea Lab intern. Cetacea Lab is an experimental whale research station on the North Coast of BC. Since 2004, when Enbridge first proposed sending oil tankers past its waters and out to Asian markets, the Lab has found itself at the centre of a growing environmental controversy. Whale scientists listen to generate abundance studies and spatialize cetacean behavior patterns, but increasingly, to generate knowledge-claims that can free the North Coast from the grip of industrial capital too. How did this happen? And what makes the intern so special? My talk will sound out concretions in a fascinating interspecies history, one shaped by naval bioacoustics, environmentalism and the casualization of labor.
Music will be provided.
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