Who is Responsible for the Seaweed? The Limits of Imagination and the Misallocation of Labor

Abstract

Since 2011, the influx of large quantities of seaweed across the Caribbean have generated serious environmental and economic disruptions to local communities reliant on tourism. Scientists believe the seaweed is caused by warming ocean waters and excessive nutrient runoff from Brazil. Limited in their ability to address the sources for the plant’s excessive growth, communities have invested hundreds of millions of dollars and hired thousands of workers to mitigate the seaweed’s effects. In this paper, I examine how residents of Playa del Carmen initially dealt with large seaweed blooms that began to inundate its beaches in 2018. As the community grappled with the plant, residents began to ask themselves “who is responsible for the seaweed?” Drawing from three different encounters in which different residents attempted to answer that questions, I demonstrate the expansive imaginative capacity of locals. The seaweed problem continues, I claim, not because imagination is lacking, but because labor is misallocated.