Coffee & Geography Podcast, Season 6 Episode 7
My chat with Pluto Liu was late at night for them and mid‑morning for me. But since Pluto is a self-confessed night-owl, that worked for us.
Pluto calls themselves a “professional nomad,” and it fits. They grew up in inland China, moved through Hong Kong and Thailand, and eventually found themselves in Aotearoa: “I came to New Zealand about eight years ago.” They told me they feel more comfortable speaking English than Mandarin or their home dialect, not because English is expressive (“English is quite boring, to be honest”) but because English accompanied them through their twenties, that turbulent decade when identity shifts and reshapes. The language they lived in became the language they belong in.
And then there is Chile. When Pluto talked about spending months in Latin America, they described discovering a culture so different from the one they grew up in — expressive, open, warm — only to find that it felt unexpectedly like home. “It was like enriching my soul,” they said. And so identity, for Pluto, is not a neat geography or a single origin story, but a patchwork — “a mixture of all different places I’ve been to” — stitched together through movement, curiosity and the willingness to let a place seep into you.
Much of our conversation circled around boundaries: the labels Western science loves to use, the divisions it insists on, the neat boxes that rarely fit the world they claim to describe. Pluto spoke about being trained across zoology, geography, ecology and arts — fields that the academia often insists on splitting apart. “They forgot everything’s interconnected,” they said. Of course, being a Geographer myself and all the conversations I have had to date, it couldn’t disagree.
Pluto’s work in marine science embodies that refusal to separate things. Studying kelp means studying currents, coastlines, temperature, carbon, Indigenous knowledge, policy, politics, capitalism, and more‑than‑human life. We talked about the Antarctic Treaty, the anxieties around fishing, and how capitalism creeps into even remote seas. Pluto sees the problems clearly, but also the nuance: the ways Antarctic tourism, for all its ethical complications, can sometimes lead to deeper care because of the rigorous protocols and profound emotional impact of being physically present there. “It was mind blowing… literally just wow,” they said of their own journey south.
Pluto then became the second guest to have a go at the new ‘Grounds for Debate’ feature of the podcast – a false dichotomy playful arguement where I play devil’s advocate to the guest’s stance. This time it was What will die first, kelp or captialism!? A bit of ‘gallows humour’ in that one! “Kelp will outlive capitalism,” Pluto said without hesitation.
Their reasons were wonderful — ecological, philosophical, slightly mischievous which suited me fine. Kelp has been here longer. Kelp is resilient. Kelp doesn’t need branding. And capitalism? Well, in Pluto’s view, the seams are showing. “We are kind of seeing the end of it already,” they said. “When everything is getting to ****, something good is going to happen.”
There was laughter too — stories of tattoo artistry (“sometimes I fall asleep, it’s like a deep tissue massage”), of nearly failing a scuba test because they couldn’t take their mask off underwater, of getting a diving certificate before learning to swim properly, of surfing for the first time.
Perhaps that’s what I loved most about this conversation. It wasn’t just about marine science or kelp forests or Antarctica. It was about how a person becomes themselves through the places they’ve lived, the languages they’ve held, the communities they’ve found, and the geographies they’ve decided to care for. It was about humour as resistance, art as knowledge, and tattoos as tiny acts of geography inked on skin.
Weblinks for Listeners:
🔗 Pluto’s BlueSky account: bsky.app/profile/plutoxliu.bsky.social
🔗 Trade Aid Aotearoa: www.tradeaid.org.nz/
🔗 Antarctic Treaty Secretariat: www.ats.aq/
🔗 Baldwin Street – Dunedin: www.dunedinnz.com/insiders/baldwin-street2
Geogramblings 