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Article

French

ID: <

10.4000/tc.15648

>

·

DOI: <

10.4000/tc.15648

>

Where these data come from
Deep diving with coral

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which coral fishermen manage the physiological and mental limitations of coral diving through gas mixtures, body techniques and affects. The choice of gas mixture and the technical solutions adopted to harvest red coral at great depths is a central problem. It is resolved in two contradictory ways by the protagonists. On the one hand, the choice of air causes the rapture of the deep, changes consciousness and perceptions. It produces images and hallucinations to the extent that the frightening figure of the mythical Medusa sometimes appears, but it ultimately dampens the consciousness of the risks taken. On the other hand, the choice to breathe a helium-based gas mixture allows one to maintain better control of the situation and full consciousness, without stopping the imaginary and phantasmal life. This extreme lucidity paradoxically leads to the emergence of fear through awareness of the risks and dangers that the diver is experiencing at these great depths. Medusa then emerges again as the figure of the fear of the diver in the radical otherness of the deep seabed.

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