Architecture + Cities Research Forum: Living with the Reef: Tourism, Care and Conservation in North Sulawesi, Indonesia by Anita Lateano

This seminar outlined Anita’s PhD research project, which is an ethnographic exploration of the world of coral reef restoration in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Here, coral restoration has become both an act of care and a performance of conservation, inviting tourists to take part in rebuilding reefs while promising encounters with nature and hope amid environmental crisis. Through long-term fieldwork, this research traced how governments, NGOs, local communities, and private enterprises work together in collaboration and in tension, to shape what restoration means in practice. The project asked what meaningful conservation might look like in an age of environmental uncertainty.