ABSTRACT
Some Humans Think We Are Marine Gold is how a sea cucumber explains their commodification in the global seafood market in this chapter. The chapter discusses the bêche-de-mer trade in relation to the expansion of the global blue economy. For a historical background, it looks back at the longue durée of transoceanic trade between African, Arab and Asian worlds, which was followed by European colonialism. Postcolonial relations between China and Tanzania frames the discussion on bêche-de-mer trade in more recent times, which is also told through life stories of fishers and traders. The rapid increase in sea cucumber exploitation is discussed in relation to global power dynamics in the expansion of neoliberalism. The problematic results of this blue expansion are also discussed in relation to different forms of local resistance. The chapter concludes with a cautionary tale of the challenges that sea cucumbers face in the Capitalocene.
