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- Convenor:
-
Marianna Dudley
(University of Bristol)
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- Location:
- Bloco 1, Sala 1.12
- Start time:
- 13 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
From ocean currents to explosive waves, the seas are relentlessly mobile. While this motion is often implicit in understandings of oceans, it also poses some conceptual challenges for scholars. This panel addresses oceanic mobility through empirical case studies and interdisciplinary conversations.
Long Abstract:
From ocean currents to explosive waves, the seas are relentlessly mobile. While this movement is often implicit in understandings of oceans (and their interactions with shores), it also poses some conceptual challenges for inevitably land-based scholars, working largely with territorial documents and static archives, that demand close attention.
This panel will bring together scholars who engage with movement in their research. Some have already started conversations, across varied case studies. For example, Thomas Brandt approaches the ocean-as-archive via a historic Norwegian wave energy test site. He asks why has it proven so difficult to use ocean waves as a reliable source of energy, and considers the transformation of ocean space as a site of an alternative energy future. Peter Coates engages with notions of bio-commercial flows, biocultural heritage and animal-based local and global (human) connections and identities through a case study of eels in the Severn Estuary. And Marianna Dudley uses research into Hawaiian wave cultures to explore the rise of the recreational wave as a sporting arena, a bearer of heritage, and a new force in global nature conservation.
Connecting these case studies is a consideration of how tides, flows, and waves have shaped the populations and ideas which thrive within and without them. We look forward to meeting others who also engage with motion and movement in relation to oceans and shores, to think through some of the challenges it presents us and start new conversations which address oceanic mobility as conceptual challenge, and push the fundamental centrality of motion as a feature of the 'blue humanities'.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The 16th-century Newfoundland fishery was built on a seasonal, cyclical migratory system that emerged as an adaptation to and expression of the unique environmental pressures of the northwest Atlantic. Seasonal natural rhythms encouraged seasonal, cyclical migrations for mariners and First Nations
Paper long abstract:
In the first decades of the sixteenth century mariners from across Europe established a commercial, transnational cod- and whale-fishery in the northwest Atlantic. Such an achievement was only made possible when mariners abandoned fixed colonies and permanent migration. The transatlantic fisheries thrived through the adoption of new patterns of cyclical, seasonal labour migrations between Europe and Newfoundland. This cycle was dictated by natural rhythms, including the seasons and the migratory patterns of marine life and changes in north Atlantic climate.
This paper will explore how cyclical, seasonal migration shaped the far north Atlantic by considering two major points. First, this paper will outline how the sixteenth century fisheries at Newfoundland were only made possible by a system of seasonal, migratory maritime labour. A cyclical, seasonal model of migration was well suited to the particular environmental conditions of the far north Atlantic and represents one of the most successful adaptations of European populations in the emerging Atlantic world of the sixteenth century.
This paper will then argue that the migratory patterns of European fishermen closely resembled the seasonal migrations of indigenous societies in northeast North America, including the Algonkian and Inuit peoples. Both mariners and First Nations practiced a form of seasonal migration that was dictated by marine life. What this suggests is that the particular environmental conditions of the northwest Atlantic exerted a powerful pressure on both terrestrial and maritime societies in the region. Two societies from different sides of the Atlantic ultimately adopted the same systemic response to the environmental pressures they faced in Newfoundland.
Paper short abstract:
Why has it proven so difficult to use ocean waves as a source of energy? This paper will consider one specific attempt to solve the problems of ocean wave power conversion in 1970s and 80s Norway in a global context of ocean energy issues.
Paper long abstract:
For centuries, engineers and scientists have sought to capture some of the oceans' enormous potential to generate power and electricity. However, attempts to harness this energy resource have been riddled with numerous problems, and there are currently very few commercially viable energy systems that are based on ocean wave conversion technology. Why has it proven so difficult to use ocean waves as a source of energy? In this paper I will consider one specific attempt to solve the problems of ocean wave power. In 1973, prompted by the energy crisis, a research group at the Norwegian Institute of Technology started to design a technology to capture ocean wave energy. Their idea was based on rethinking the nature of ocean waves. Eventually a set of full-scale test sites was established along the shores of Western Norway, which were destroyed by the Winter storms in 1989. Today, these sites are abandoned ruins, a fading memorial to the recurring dream of harnessing the power of the ocean. Drawing on theory and methodology from the history of science, engineering and technology I will analyse previously unused archival sources, oral history and public administration records related to ocean wave energy conversion in 1970s to 1990s Norway. The overall aim of my research is to trace the historical development of some pertinent instances of how the ocean space was sought transformed into a resource in the visions for an alternative energy future
Paper short abstract:
Waves rise, flow, roll, break. They are, by nature, moving forces, never static. What challenges does this pose to environmental historians (and others)? This paper focuses on a case study of Hawaii in the modern era to think through just a few of the many ways in which waves and humans interact.
Paper long abstract:
Waves have resisted historical study. They are, by nature, transient and disappearing: one second forming, the next, breaking. History has focused, instead, on the things they have carried and flows they have created: people, trade, empires, ideas, industries.
But waves assert themselves in our lives, and in our pasts, with a force to be reckoned with. They shape our shorelines, animate our sea views, oxygenate our marine environments and expunge unlimited energy. And they continue to test our wits and courage, and endanger lives, by their power.
This paper focuses on a case study of Hawaii in the modern era to think through just a few of the many ways in which waves and humans interact. It will focus particularly on the rise of the wave as a bearer of heritage; as a recreational or sporting arena; and an as a site of resistance to social and political change, as seen in a grassroots movement on the islands to 'Save Our Waves'.
Grounded in archival research, the paper engages with ideas from the Blue Humanities of waves as historical subjects, and builds on the conceptual groundwork (to use a land-based metaphor) of environmental history. It explores the ways in which moving environmental forces leave tangible traces on more fixed ways of being and thinking. How might engagement with motion, mobility and transience in historical research deepen our understanding of human-environment relationships? And how, as historians, can we best capture the transient nature of our maritime subjects?
Paper short abstract:
Bio-commercial flows, biocultural heritage and fish-based local and global connections and identities are explored through a case study of young eels (elvers) in the eelscape of Britain’s Severn estuary, a bio-cultural waterscape/shorescape shaped by the world’s second highest tidal regime.
Paper long abstract:
Each year, running with the high spring tides, a large proportion of the staggering numbers of young eels (elvers) born in the Sargasso Sea two years earlier complete their eastward migration by entering one of western Europe's biggest estuaries: the Severn, which separates England and Wales. This paper engages with notions of bio-commercial flows, biocultural heritage and animal-based local and global (human) connections and identities through a site-sensitive case study of a diadromous fish species with one of the most curious, science-defying life cycles (only one percent of all fish migrate between fresh and saltwater) as well as exceptionally rich commercial, food and cultural histories. Within the world of diadromous fish migration, the (catadromous) eel's movements are second only to the (anadromous) salmon's in terms of spectacular character and the quantity of scientific studies devoted to them - but rank far behind the 'noble' and 'charismatic' salmon within popular consciousness and scholarly studies within the environmental humanities. This paper aims to remove ('daylight') the eel from the salmon's shadow by evoking the distinctive 'animal landscape' (eelscape) of the Severn estuary, a bio-cultural waterscape/shorescape shaped by the world's second highest tidal regime. This paper is based on research for the Eel Strand of the 'Hidden Ecologies' project pursued by the 'Water City Bristol' case study within the national 'Towards Hydrocitizenship' project (funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council) http://www.watercitybristol.org/hidden-ecologies---eels.html.
Paper short abstract:
This paper reports upon collaborative NWO-AHRC research conducted by UK and Dutch cultural geographers and artists into tidal ecologies of place in the UK and Holland and beyond.
Paper long abstract:
This paper reports upon collaborative NWO-AHRC research conducted by UK and Dutch cultural geographers and artists into tidal ecologies of place in the UK and Holland and beyond. Tidal zones are extraordinarily dynamic spaces which generate complex ecologies which interconnect land and sea, air and water as elements, salt water and fresh water as variations of the latter, and a range of eco-social assemblages. All these interconnecting processes are set in series of rhythms driven by tidal cycles. Tides literally mix space, time and materiality. Tidal processes in different locations vary markedly in term of range, the habitats and ecologies generated, and in the way local culture and economy engage with them (ecologies of place). For a range of reasons which include possible climate change induced sea level rise, and various forms of development and exploitation, tidal areas around the world, and the important interconnected natural and cultural heritage they support, are under a great deal of pressure. Accounts of tidal ecologies of place, particularly as generated by artists, in the Severn Estuary UK and the Wadden Sea Netherlands will be discussed.