Atoll engineering in the Maldives: Shifting priorities in crafting archipelagic landscapes

Abstract

This article scrutinises environmental engineering activities in the Maldive Islands over the past four centuries, with a focus on the last six decades. It explores the historic trajectories of environmental transformations in the archipelago to demonstrate how various kinds of human modifications of marine and terrestrial landscapes reflect shifting priorities and preoccupations of the island society at given times. The analytical focus is on construction activities that involve coral and sand mining, dredging of harbours and shipping lanes, land reclamation and beach nourishment, as well as the creation of artificial islands and coral reefs. This paper proposes the notion of 'atoll engineering' to capture these various human-environment entanglements in a comprehensive analytical framework and to account for the particularities of inhabiting a coral island ecosystem. By mapping out historic continuities and discontinuities, this paper argues that scrutiny of atoll engineering displays alterations in islanders' understandings of and relationships with their thalassic environment and enables understanding of the influences of colonialism, modernisation and climate change on Maldivian society and culture.