The Metabolic Rift and Nature-Based Tourism: An Analysis of the Human-Shark Crisis in Capitalist Production

• In Event: 317 - Section on Animals and Society Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Animals and the Environment

Abstract

In this article, I develop a theoretical foundation for understanding the human influence on the oceans and the resulting human-shark crisis as it relates to shark exploitation. Drawing on environmental sociology, I study the nature-society dialectic concerning human interactions with the ocean for the experience of viewing sharks in their natural habitat. I extend Foster’s concept of the metabolic rift to marine, nature-based tourism [shark cage diving] to (a) explore contentious human transformations of the sharks’ natural network, (b) examine the anthropogenic causes of shark exploitation, and (c) reveal the ecological consequences of ongoing capitalist production linked to marine, nature-based tourism.

Author

• Meghan Elizabeth Charters, Michigan State University