Rhizomatic assemblage of the seascape in the Anthropocene: MARA as a multisensory semiotic landscape approach

In the face of ever accelerating climate change, the ability to resist such change and work with nature to secure a more environmentally just future poses a striking but necessary challenge. From this perspective, the present article asks: Can a posthuman reimagining of the human, non-human, and more-than-human nexus in the context of a semiotic landscape analysis of the seas (henceforth, seascape) create new possibilities beyond the Anthropocene? This approach, which I call MARA—mapping and applying a rhizomatic assemblage of the seascape—aims to offer an exploratory framework for rethinking the interaction of the multispecies entanglement and the consequences in terms of vulnerability and resilience to climate change. This is achieved through a multisensory semiotic landscape approach to a case study of a blue tourism initiative in Ireland’s seascape. The results of the case study serve to undo the previously accepted binary structure of power which favours human over non-human. (Multisensory semiotic landscape, seascape, rhizomatic assemblage