Giving a voice to the invisible world of the abyss

By Carole Saout-Grit and Laurie Henry

The urgency of a new look at forgotten abysses

The abyss is the largest biome on our planet and a key ecosystem for planetary equilibrium. However, our collective imagination struggles to give it a place other than that of a dark and inhospitable void. Today, the ecological crisis requires a fresh look at these depths, where fascinating creatures such as the deep-sea dumbo live, long perceived as monsters or simple biological curiosities.

This is the context of Pauline André-Dominguez’s thesis. Trained in literature and ecopoetics at Aix-Marseille University (2019-2021), Pauline seeks to give an account of living worlds through narratives that combine facts and emotions. She endeavours to rebuild bridges between science and literature in a form of realist literature to better reveal these little-known worlds. Words are her strength for storytelling and informing, raising awareness, sharing knowledge and setting ideas in motion.

Portrait © Pauline André-Dominguez

A PhD student since 2023 at the EHESS in conjunction with the french Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), her thesis work should now make it possible to make visible this invisible world of the abyss. While scientific discourse struggles to be heard and shared with as many people as possible, literature has a role to play through the power of stories, fiction and narration. Faced with this new challenge of shedding light on the world of the abyss, Pauline intends to combine science and narrative arts to answer this question: how can the complexity of invisible marine worlds be made tangible and made central players in our environmental decisions?

Exploring the abyss through science and fiction

To reconcile science and literature and offer a new way of thinking about the abyss, Pauline is working on two lines of investigation.

Her work is based first and foremost on an interdisciplinary study of knowledge about hydrothermal vents. In collaboration with scientists from the MNHN, Ifremer and CNRS, she collects data and testimonies about deep-sea life. This approach enables a better understanding of the interactions between deep-sea creatures and their sentient ‘worlds’ (intelligence, languages and cultures), and an exploration of how this knowledge is constructed, transmitted and sometimes neglected.

Atlas of the Abyss, Jozée Sarrazin et Stéphanie Brabant. Illustrations by Julie Terrazzoni, Arthaud, 2024

At the same time, in a zoopoetic narrative laboratory, Pauline is seeking to write new stories combining ecology and ethology with the codes of fiction and poetry. Inspired by works such as Autobiography of an Octopus by Vinciane Despret and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, she seeks to make these worlds perceptible and to reach a wide audience through lecture-performances and writing workshops.

A story and words to raise awareness about the protection of the abyss

The thesis aims to create an interdisciplinary lexicon of knowledge related to the deep sea, in order to better structure and transmit this knowledge. From this basis, it develops accessible zoopoetic narratives, capable of engaging in dialogue with actors in the ecological transition and political decision-makers. This project is also part of an innovative scientific mediation approach, combining arts and sciences to raise awareness of the protection of the deep sea.

School workshop by Pauline André-Dominguez © P. André-Dominguez

The thesis is funded for three years (2023-2026) by the Priority Research Programme Ocean & Climate, responding to the challenge of integrating the arts with the sciences in thinking about the ocean and its transformations. It is supervised by Tiphaine Samoyault, a specialist in narratives and the political and social effects of literature at EHESS, and Anne-Caroline Prévot, ecologist and conservation biologist at the MNHN.

In a hybrid and innovative approach, this work opens up a new way of thinking about and telling the story of the abyss in a different way. They are part of the emerging field of blue humanities, bringing together science and the arts to rethink our relationship with the oceans and all living things. The results should demonstrate that the deep sea is inhabited by living beings that are not only essential to ecosystems but also sentient, and that the alliance of science and literature makes it possible to better understand these worlds where part of the future of life on Earth is at stake.

3 Questions to Pauline André-Dominguez 

Why did you want to do a thesis in marine sciences?

I was born on the Atlantic coast, in Nantes, and have always been drawn to the ocean and sailing, which I have been exploring since a transatlantic crossing with the Bel espoir (AJD) association. I seek to raise awareness of the living worlds of the abyss because what has driven me since 2010 is above all to make visible the invisible and forgotten worlds by giving a voice to those who have none. First through freelance narrative journalism and now through a thesis in research-creation/action that extends the work undertaken in the Master’s degree in Literature ‘ecopoetics and creation’ (2019-2021, Aix-Marseille University). The deep sea worlds remain invisible to most of us because they are distant and inaccessible. However, they play a fundamental role in the future of life on Earth and human societies.

This thesis is therefore a continuation of my professional career: from the field of writing, I strive to tell the story of the world through the literatures of the real that combine facts and the art of storytelling. Telling stories to inform, raise awareness, share knowledge and set ideas in motion. Telling the story of the world to rethink it and improve life in common. Words and ideas are not disconnected from action: the two are interdependent. I am convinced that certain words shared at the right time can be powerful levers for change, like those of Rachel Carson, which accompanied the emergence of ecological awareness and environmental policy-making in the United States in the 1960s and 70s.

What made you want to apply for this thesis topic? What motivated you?

I wanted to continue the work I had undertaken in the eco-poetics master’s programme at Aix-Marseille, with a desire to explore zoopoetics issues in particular. I am fascinated by the question of animal ‘worlds’ in the sense of Jacob von Uexküll or contemporary ethology. Ecology and ethology are two sciences that are essential for understanding these worlds and arousing the interest of civil society in the urgency and importance of considering them with respect and taking care of them.

I hope that this work can contribute to two things. The first is to nurture the production of interdisciplinary knowledge that helps us to better consider the living beings of the abyss for what they are by fostering dialogue between ecology and ethology, and even bio-zoosemiotics. The second is to provide a database of scientific and ‘zoopoetic’ stories to be shared with as many people as possible, especially those driving the transitions. At the crossroads of the sciences of fiction and poetry, it is a question of combining Meaning with the senses to make these oceanic worlds intelligible and sensitive.

Thanks in particular to the alliance of the sciences and narrative arts, I hope that present and future generations will pay attention to the millions of invisible and inaudible underwater lives and voices. I hope they will be able to perceive that downwind of the sea (R. Carson, 1941), living beings have things to say and are also writing the world. I hope that the ocean, right down to the abyss, will be considered part of a common evolutionary history and as a key travelling companion to the world to come.

How do you imagine your future after this thesis?

I can see several possibilities, depending on what opportunities arise: working in research, for example, in the same research-action/creation perspective in a post-doctorate; working in a scientific mediation or communication role in a research laboratory or in connection with scientific institution(s); or even working in the field of awareness-raising and training on marine biodiversity and the associated societal issues with NGOs, companies in transition, educational organisations and other drivers of change.

I also hope to continue writing in the field of poetry and fiction, inspired by science, through editorial and audiovisual projects.

What matters to me is being able to continue working in the field of words that make worlds. Words that bring together scientific rigour, knowledge of oceanic peoples and creative imagination in the service of collective action in the ecological and societal transition.

Référence : Pauline André-Dominguez, « Zoopoetics of the abyss: a storytelling laboratory combining literature, ecology and ethology to share essential knowledge with the public, redefining the relationship between humans and the ocean in the contemporary imagination. », phD 2023-2026

Contact : Pauline.Andre-Dominguez@ehess.fr