UC Santa Cruz

The World for a Coral tells the story of divers who scour the reefs of Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, for beautiful and increasingly rare live corals for the global aquarium industry. Working on small wooden boats and breathing from makeshift air compressors, divers gather corals from reefs near the provincial capital city, Kendari, destined for saltwater aquariums around the world.

For years coral collecting brought prosperity to divers and their communities—a blessing of good fortune, or rejeki. But as Indonesia’s coral reefs continue to decline, divers have been pushed to intensify their efforts—sailing farther, diving deeper, and searching longer—working harder under more dangerous conditions for the same or diminishing returns. Then, in 2018, a power struggle within the government brought the trade to a sudden halt, as key permits needed to turn corals into state approved commodities were withheld. With their livelihood on pause, how would the divers get by? Drawing on 23 months of ethnographic research, I show how coral collectors navigate both environmental change and a shifting political economy. I argue that as ecological processes—the “work” of nature—are increasingly undermined, and as the political winds shift, people are forced to get creative, taking up what I call “experiments in fortune.” These include experimenting with novel commodities and new markets, seeking credit and capital in unlikely places, devising creative ways to skirt the authorities or drum up permission—even recycling waste from industrial nickel mining to generate new plots of reclaimed land. But it also means trialing forms of intensification involving increased inputs of labor, time, and money, and which bring heightened bodily and financial risk, like fishing with fertilizer bombs or diving on unreliable compressors. As they work, coastal communities navigate what I call “economies of permission,” engaging official forms of state authority, everyday vernacular institutions, customary rules governing access, and the permission of sea guardian spirits who protect the reefs.

As they piece together a livelihood at a time of environmental loss and political economic change, I show how coral divers and coastal communities reimagine belonging, ownership, labor, and the promise of fortune.