A Billion-Euro Industry? (De-)territorialisation Processes of Norway's Seaweed Farming Assemblage

Abstract

Seaweed farming is a rising sector in European policy narratives and is increasingly integrated in coastal countries' bioeconomy strategies. Norway aims to lead this European ‘Seaweed Revolution’. Envisioned as a ‘billion-euro industry’, its development is in its infancy yet contains ambitions for upscaling and socio-economic credentials that promote it as a sector for sustainable finance and investments. Through assemblage conceptualisation, the paper unfolds the relations that connect the fluid materialities of seaweed with ambitious business plans, coastal localities, calls for upscaling, complex markets and assesses the trajectories potentials for sector development. Instead of forecasting the future of seaweed farming in Norway, it displays how the sociospatial complexities of the Norwegian seaweed farming assemblages' components enable or disperse currently dominant and optimistic sectoral narratives, providing a critical window to highlight the underlying and partially contradictory processes that shape the development trajectories of a sector promoted as a beacon of sustainable transformation.