Vita
2023 – today
Postdoctoral Researcher at HIFMB/AWI, Oldenburg
2021 – 2023
Associate Research Fellow at School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong
2019 – 2021
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Mining Equipment, Technology and Services Business Innovation and the Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resource Extraction (CRC ORE), Queensland University of Technology
2015 – 2019
PhD in human geography, University of Queensland
2012 – 2013
Master of Museum Studies, University of Queensland
2007 – 2010
Bachelor of Design (Interior Design), Queensland University of Technology
Research Interests
Amelia Hine is a critical resource geographer from Brisbane, Australia and now living and working in Oldenburg, Germany. Amelia’s research and creative practice have focused on resource and energy futures, emphasising nonhuman and nonliving agencies, volumetric geographies, and particulate and chemical knowability. In her previous roles with the University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, and the University of Wollongong, she has regularly undertaken fieldwork in Australian mining and industrial regions including the Bowen and Galilee coal basins in Central Queensland, Leigh Creek coal mine in South Australia, and the heavy industry seaport Port Kembla in New South Wales.
Building on her previous experience with extractive regulatory regimes and decarbonised futures, Amelia is developing two projects within her role at HIFMB. The first examines access to the deep seabed in international waters. The deep seabed is legally recognised as the ‘common heritage of [hu]mankind’, which means everyone on earth has the potential to be recognised as a deep seabed stakeholder within the emergent deep sea mining regulatory framework. In practice, however, it is challenging to assert oneself as a deep seabed stakeholder because of the remoteness of the seabed and difficulty demonstrating direct or indirect interests or impacts of potential mining projects. This research explores how to become a deep seabed stakeholder through encounters with already extracted seabed materials. It further seeks out pathways and limits for gaining access to the seabed commons.
The second project focuses on the emergent ocean-based carbon removal industry and the avenues through which it is attempting to establish global scientific and market legitimacy. Atmospheric carbon is invisible to the naked eye and ocean-based sequestration can be difficult to quantify because the sequestered carbon is often remote (vertically and horizontally) or diffused within the ocean. Gaining trust in the effectiveness of their novel technologies to effectively remove carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it long-term is therefore a central goal for companies within the emergent industry. The project considers how external standards and auditing and internal verification protocols are performative socio-material processes that facilitate the transformation of invisible and geographically displaced sequestered carbon into a nontangible or virtual commodity. These research projects are being undertaken in conjunction with Dr Kate Sammler and Professor Kimberley Peters. Dr Sammler leads the Marine Political Ecology Collective, of which Amelia is a current member.