The Pearl Bearing Reef and the Submarine as Method

In this paper I seek to bridge the literature on oceanic history with the emerging interest in the “blue humanities” to ask whether and how “ocean as method” suffices for writing the history of the seafloor and reefs. Synthesizing this scholarship across history, literature, geography and critical media studies, I use the historic exploitation of pearl bearing reefs to ask how submarine histories may or may not depart from the concerns of scholars working on “oceans as method.” Are submarine histories equivocal with oceanic histories? Do they require distinct disciplinary or theoretical commitments, or novel approaches to archives? I compare varying regimes of sovereignty over the pearl bearing reef in the 19th century Indian Ocean to bring these questions into sharper focus, asking where the seabed, its creatures and the submarine lie in relation to the land and surface of the ocean.