ABSTRACT
Humans and aquatic other animals live in interrelated, and interdependent systems of “naturecultures.” Addressing the history of their entangled ecologies, times, and spaces, and of multi-species assemblages allows us to set aside traditional dichotomies and move beyond current scientific and cultural understandings. I will review early modern tropical knowledge for the construction of a local and European natural history and philosophy. The role of manatees and their interactions with different people, and their own agency, are explored in this chapter in the context of the early modern history of natural history and the co-constructions of existences and worldviews in the past and present. To end the chapter and the book, I will engage in a discussion of a blue early modern Anthropocene.
