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The digital twinning of Tuvalu: Deep ecology in the age of virtual reproduction

Leighton Evans Orcid Logo

New Media & Society, Volume: 27, Issue: 8, Pages: 4499 - 4514

Swansea University Author: Leighton Evans Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1177/14614448251338282

Abstract

The threat of climate change to nation-states like Tuvalu has led to a novel attempt at digital preservation through virtual reproduction. Tuvalu’s Future Now Project aims to create a ‘digital nation’ in the metaverse. This article critically analyses this state-scale digital twinning from two theor...

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Published in: New Media & Society
ISSN: 1461-4448 1461-7315
Published: SAGE Publications 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69409
Abstract: The threat of climate change to nation-states like Tuvalu has led to a novel attempt at digital preservation through virtual reproduction. Tuvalu’s Future Now Project aims to create a ‘digital nation’ in the metaverse. This article critically analyses this state-scale digital twinning from two theoretical lenses. First, drawing on deep ecology, it argues the virtual reproduction substitutes the intrinsic value of Tuvalu’s landscape and culture with instrumental value optimised for digital capitalism’s extractive logic. Second, building on concepts from Benjamin and Baudrillard, it contends that digital twinning subverts the cultural symbolic order through semiotic transformation, rendering the ‘digital nation’ a hyperreal imitation stripped of aura. Rather than preserving sovereignty over disappeared territory, the metaverse reproduction reimagines the state itself as a simulation. While responding to the severe threat of global warming, the project raises critical questions about the politics and value of virtual reproduction.
Keywords: Deep ecology, digital twin, hyperreality, metaverse, Tuvalu
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Funders: Swansea University
Issue: 8
Start Page: 4499
End Page: 4514

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