Still Holding: Plastic Pollution, Artistic Methods, and Accountability in Bohuslän

Plastic pollution, with its origins in the production of petrochemical products, is pervasive worldwide and significantly abundant in the global oceans. Plastics are slow to deteriorate and have already been identified in the fossil record, sitting in geological time. Ocean currents and marine winds determine where and how plastics accumulate and where these effects are concentrated. This article takes the pervasiveness of plastics in marine environments as marine violence as a point of departure, and it contributes a critical lens on marine science research that bridges the fields of marine science, environmental justice, and the blue humanities. By reflecting on a case study of marine science research on pollution and accountability led by Therese M. Karlsson on the west coast of Sweden and also the site-specific artistic research practice of poetry writing in the same study area, this article argues that the ways Karlsson et al. carry out their research in their case study are feminist and place this research in conversation with blue humanities methods of caring for specific places through creative practice. Furthermore, this article’s analysis is continuously informed by environmental justice principles attentive to equity and health across species and ecosystems. Integrating artistic research into marine science research opens further possibilities for activating accountability processes with regard to marine plastic pollution for researchers working in these disciplines. These approaches to research combined offer frameworks for the research to ask, “What am I holding on to? With whom? Where?”