The past shall not begin: Frozen seeds, extended presents and the politics of reversibility

Abstract

The article analyzes the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) as a specific security technology created to deal with the ecological threat of biodiversity loss. Built in 2008 inside the Arctic Circle, the SGSV serves as a backup for 1,700 agricultural gene banks around the world. If seed collections are lost due to natural disasters or human error, the gene banks can request copies of their varieties from Svalbard and restore their collections to continue the endeavour of plant breeding. The article focuses on the particular temporal politics expressed in the SGSV. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s reflections on time, it is argued that the SGSV opens up the possibility of reversing events by expanding the duration of the present. By separating seeds from their ecological connections on the one hand and controlling their metabolic processes through the use of cold on the other, an enduring temporal zone is created that allows modern society to control the unpredictable and irreversible dynamics of life and undo its emergent effects. The SGSV therefore materializes what is herein called the politics of reversibility.

Welcome to Whenever: Exploring Suspended Life in Cryopreservation Practices

“…For useful discussions of Luhmann's conception of time, see Nassehi (1993), Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito (1997, 214-17), Tang (2013), andTada (2019). The following argument draws on Gehring's (2007) reading of Luhmann's theory of time and Wolff's (2021) extension of her interpretation in a case study of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. 5.…”

“…25. Wolff (2021) describes this strategy as a "politics of reversibility" (p. 87; see also Gehring 2007, 429). 26.…”

“…assume a prolonged present” (Luhmann 1981, 135). This operation generates “a kind of limbo” [“eine Art Schwebezustand”], in which time comes to a halt and options are still open (Luhmann 1981, 135; see also Gehring 2007, 426; Wolff 2021, 81-84). 9…”

“…Wolff argues that this planetary seed bank stretches the duration of the present to address the danger of extinction and other catastrophic events. In the light of climate change and biodiversity loss, “the aim of the SGSV is to extend the period in which action can be taken and events and mistakes can be corrected.…it opens up a space in which the events of loss and extinction are not permanent” (Wolff 2021, 90). Thus, the SGSV does not prevent or prepare for the imminent disaster as such but seeks to ensure that the damage will be reversible.…”

The history of seed banking and the hazards of backup

“…9, 74). Together with other scholars, and consonant with the larger literature on biobanking, they pinpoint the alteration of seeds' temporalities -the timeframes in which they are expected to live and evolve -as the key means by which security is achieved (Breithoff and Harrison, 2020;Harrison, 2017;Wolff, 2021; on other biological specimen collections, see, e.g. Radin, 2017;Van Allen, 2020).…”