THEORIZING ENVIRONMENTAL MEDIATION THROUGH IRELAND'S PEATLANDS

Abstract

In colonial and postcolonial Ireland, boglands were seen as "wastelands" to be "improved" by large-scale enterprise. Today, they are strategic landscapes for carbon sequestration and climate solutions, both for the state and multinationals located in Ireland. Various contemporary projects, co-funded by industry and state partners, have facilitated the expansion and proliferation of sensing, monitoring, and mapping technologies across Ireland's bogs to measure and maximize their value in these economies. However, by doing so, they are laying the foundations for a "green grab" of Ireland's land resources by tech companies. This paper situates the historical resource and conservation landscape of Ireland’s peat boglands within their emerging role in datafied “green” revolutions. Emphasizing the stakes of land, resources, technologies, and research institutions within green transitions, the paper theorizes peat bogs an emerging site of digital climate solutionism. In doing so, I offer a framework for understanding resource landscapes in so-called “post-extractive” contexts where networked forms of extraction are innovated through public/private technoscientific research at the intersections of digital technology and ecosystemic interactions between geologies, atmospheres, and cultures. Bringing together literature from environmental media studies, STS, and geography, and performing participant observation and discourse analysis on emerging projects of peatland science in academic and industry settings, I theorize how “environmental mediation” offers an aperture for understanding how digital technologies network landscapes towards “ecosystem services” and other capital-driven climate projects.