On Oil Flow and Coral Enclosure: Climate Changes in the Red Sea

Drawing on a handful of in-depth interviews with coral scientists, this essay considers two Red Sea stories, the first about oil flow and the second about coral enclosure. These stories demonstrate the varying, at times contradictory, dimensions of flow, underlining its relational significance and how it can only be understood within a particular spatial and temporal context. While the flow of oil is typically seen as positive for global commerce, when viewing it from a climate justice perspective, the value of flow is flipped on its head, turning chokepoints into the positive nodes in the network. The movement or enclosure of Red Sea corals illustrates how climate emergency terraforms political and economic landscapes and the layered complexities that underscore the attempts to govern environmental degradation. At the end of the day, then, the Red Sea brings to bear the complex relationality of governing more-than-human flow at a time of climate changes.