Paper short abstract:

Explores ethnographically how so-called soft coastal protection practices in Aotearoa New Zealand coproduce social and natural orders, or coastal naturecultures, framed as do-it-yourself coastal protection, the reconstruction of native natureculture, or soft engineering ‘in concert with nature’.

Paper long abstract:

'Soft' approaches to coastal protection challenge established ways of defending the coast. In a world altered by climate change and searching for more sustainable avenues into the anthropocenic future, an emerging sociotechnical imaginary reenvisions coastal protection: 'to work with nature - and not against it'. Such practices are necessarily place-bound and embedded into specific figurations of different actors, material objects, living matter, legal frameworks, scientific discourses, and imaginaries addressing questions of nature and culture.

I explore soft coastal protection projects in Aotearoa New Zealand, enrolling dune restoration volunteers, coastal dwellers, unemployed Māori youth, and surfer-scientists. Specific naturecultures are resulting from their material practices of engaging with, caring for, and making coastal natures: do-it-yourself coastal protection, the reconstruction of native natureculture, or the development of artificial reef technologies in concert with nature. These naturalcultural assemblages are evidence to what people believe is the right way to interact with the coastal environment, as well as outcomes of the endless redistribution of material through the coastal system, the growing and dying of plants, and the effects of returning storms. The sociotechnical imaginary of 'working with nature' defines a common future for Aotearoa New Zealand, addressing not only the right state of nature, but also legitimizing certain forms of human engagement: hands-on, physical volunteer labour maintaining Aotearoa New Zealand's distinctiveness as a country, an definition of 'soft' by Māori as what can be achieved without Pākeha interference, or the connection to the coastal environment born out of the daily immersion of surfer-scientists into the sea.