recently completed a doctorate at the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. His PhD thesis examined diverse seabed uses such as undersea cables, seabed mining, and undersea pipelines in Indonesia. In this research project, his work particularly tries to fathom how diverse seabed uses redefine our ways of thinking about the seabed geopolitically beyond the sterile legal and geological definition of the seabed to capture dispute, conflict, and environmental injustice often invisible in this physical space.
Dr. Saputra’s thesis titled, “Go Offshore, Go Deeper: Benthic Geopolitics off the Bangka and Belitung Islands, Indonesia.” is archived here: http://oops.uni- oldenburg.de/7036/
Outputs
The Paradox of Sensing paper presentation by Dr. Saputra w/ discussant Dr. House-Peters. Jul 29, 2026
Webinar from the Research Centre for Area Studies, featuring speaker Merdeka Agus Saputra, Ph.D. (postdoctoral fellow at PRW BRIN) presenting “The Paradox of Sensing: Indonesian seabed mining sense-ability and insensitivity to benthic habitat degradation” (published in Geoforum, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718526001429). Will feature comments from discussant Dr Lily House-Peters (California State University Long Beach) and questions from the…
The paradox of sensing: Indonesian seabed mining sense-ability and insensitivity to benthic habitat degradation.
An in-situ ethnographic approach to offshore tin mining operations off the Bangka and Belitung islands, Indonesia, the study demonstrates how the sensing apparatus makes sense-able seabed minerals while simultaneously bracketing the damage to benthic habitats caused by offshore tin extraction.
Volumetric, embodied and geologic geopolitics of the seabed: offshore tin mining in Indonesia
This paper explores the impact of seabed mining on tin divers near the Bangka and Belitung Islands, challenging traditional geopolitical approaches to governance. It emphasizes the importance of considering volumetric space, embodied experiences, and geologic materiality in mining governance.
