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- Convenors:
-
Marta Gentilucci
(University of Mayotte - MSCA Research Fellow University of Bergen)
Raffaele Maddaluno (University of Rome La Sapienza)
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- Discussant:
-
Georgeta Stoica
(Université de Mayotte (France))
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- 6 College Park (6CP), 01/037
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In the indeterminacy triggered by the current crises, does the sea have the transformative potentialities to spark the way to alternative hopeful futures? This panel invites theoretical and ethnographical contributions that reflect on the capacity of the sea to challenge the land-based perspectives.
Long Abstract:
The sea has always been a vehicle of transformation in a capitalist economy: an (un)common and radical space where the great challenges for hegemony take place. Recently, maritime trade ensured an acceleration in the exchange and transport of goods; activity that affects the way we perceive time and space and unifies historically dense and heterogeneous places. Devastation and exploitation of the maritime environment are the effects of anthropogenic “overheating” (Eriksen, 2018), at the same time, the signals highlighting the central role of the sea in processes of ecological, economic, and scientific transition, as reflected by the Blue Economy framework.
The indeterminacy of current crises force us to recalibrate our expectations for the future as communities and individuals (Bryant, Knight 2019). There is an urgent need for an ethnographic investigation of transformative practices starting from those spaces capable of triggering alternative thinking. The sea seems to us an ideal -scape to observe processes of uncertainty, resistance and unexpected imaginative drives, due to its intrinsic capacity to generate counter-narratives.
Going beyond an idea of maritime space as an arena of expansive capitalism, this panel invites reflections on the generative capacities of the sea as a "theory machine" (Helmreich, 2011).
-Is it possible to assume the sea as an ethnographic fieldwork from which to investigate issues of conservation, sustainability, climate change?
-How does the materiality of the sea affect the land-based temporalities and spatialities (Steinberg, Peters, 2015; 2019)?
-Does the sea have the transformative potentialities to spark the way to alternative hopeful futures?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
Focusing on ethnographic research developed among surfers and fishermen at Ericeira, this paper expects to challenge the categories established in the land-sea dichotomy. Exploring concepts of resistance and sustainability, it addresses how present processes and future challenges are lived locally.
Paper long abstract:
The concept of sustainability has been widely disseminated and criticized in economic (McCormack, 2017) (Costa & Chilese, 2014), social (Heidkamp & Morrissey, 2019), heritage (Filipe, Vale, & Castaño, 2018) tourism (McCool & Moisey, 2008 (2001)) developmental (Brightman & Lewis, 2017) and ecological (Tsing, 2017) aspects. Its ambiguity allows for diverse uses. In Ericeira, on the west coast of Portugal, we found its use in the added value to the maritime heritage, though the World Surfing Reserve, both in the institutional argumentation used for the promotion of tourism and for environmental preservation actions.
In the comparative approach conducted amongst the local fishing and surfing communities, where the sea historically assumes distinct meanings, we realized that the knowledge of the sea and reading nature are common aspects in their daily lives. Therefore, this paper explores the relationships and negotiations established between them, considering the simultaneous developmentalist and conservationist impetus of the last years in Ericeira. In this ambiguous context, it also addresses the expectations expressed about the future, both of small-scale fisheries and the management board of the World Surfing Reserve, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.
Considering the criticism of the heritagization processes of culture and nature (Tardy, 2018), and theoretically placing surf as Lifestyle and Art (Borne & Ponting, 2017), the concepts of resistance and localism are here observed in the labour context of Ericeira, based on the protest actions carried out both to unblock access to the marine resource and to ensure its sustainable exploitation.
Paper short abstract:
On the Gold Coast, surfing contributes both to promote tourism and to bolsters the claim for a local cultural identity. Local surfers idealize the Ocean as a place where escaping the consumeristic lifestyle of the city. Thus, the unruled urban development of the city struggles to affect the Ocean
Paper long abstract:
The Gold Coast is a beautiful tourist region in Queensland, and one of Australia’s fastest growing cities. Here, residents are trying to affirm a cultural identity that overcomes the view of the city as a frivolous touristic resort. Interestingly, surfing plays a significant role in both these processes. In fact, while it contributes to promote tourism – corroborating the image of the Gold Coast as a “paradise on Earth” – it also bolsters the mentioned claim for a local, specific way of living. In fact, even if surfing here is part of a late-capitalist and consumeristic economy, for participants it also represents a neo-Romantic way of escaping the illusive promises and the chaotic life of the city – whose flashy skyline remains visible from the surfing line-ups. Through a dualistic conceptualization between the city (seen as an epitome of contemporary civilization/culture) and the sea (“nature”), the Ocean becomes for surfers a place where recovering an intimate, authentic relationship with nature and their own selves. This induces a protective attitude towards the Ocean and stimulates environmental awareness among the local surfing population. Consequently, the “unplanned” development that has characterized this “hyper-neoliberal city” (Bosman et al. 2016) struggles to be extended to the Ocean. This leads the local institutions, politicians and stakeholders to consider the surfers’ voice and to actively involve them in the coastal management policies – e.g. in the Surf Management Plan launched in 2015, that “seeks to balance the interests of all beach and ocean users” (especially surfers).
Paper short abstract:
How can we display social aspects of transformation and hope in maritime spaces and narratives in museums and exhibitions? We use exhibitions curated at the German Maritime Museum to discuss potentials, challenges and barriers of bringing anthropological research into museums and public spaces.
Paper long abstract:
How can a museum use the sea to communicate alternatives and transformation processes that we study within our research? As two anthropologists at the German Maritime Museum, we discuss the exhibitions “CHANGE NOW – Ships Change the World” and “Toxic Legacies of War – North Sea Wrecks” as examples to analyse the potential of museums for public engagement with research on relations between people and the sea. Both use ships and shipwrecks as an entry point to access ideas around social, political, historical, economic and ecological aspects of marine environments.
Our exhibitions address the impacts of shipwrecks and ammunition remnants from the world wars, show how ships affect the marine eco systems and contextualise them as drivers of capitalist exploitation of workers and the environment. However, by centring ships we can also highlight their role in reaching and transforming desired futures. They tell stories about migration and about accessing resources for a new, more “sustainable” blue economy. Ships can be spaces for marine science, holidays, or new workplaces and as wrecks for marine habitats.
Environmental and maritime anthropologists worked on several aspects of the sea (for example Helmreich 2009 and 2011, McCall Howard 2016 and 2017, Nadel-Klein 2003, Olson 2010) yet museums often reproduce the single narrative of an exploited marine environment. The paper therefore explores opportunities and limits of using museum exhibition as methods to communicate the sea not only as a place of multiple crises but also as a space that can offer transformation.
Paper short abstract:
'Anthroposea’ means human ocean — a call to address the social side of ocean issues. In May 2021 a team of six emerging researchers sailed along the southwest coast of the UK, utilizing the immersive medium of sailing to explore how ‘being at sea’ generates new avenues for research.
Paper long abstract:
'Anthroposea’ means human ocean — a call to address the social side of ocean issues. In May 2021 a team of six emerging researchers set sail from Hampshire to Cornwall, utilizing the immersive medium of sailing to explore how ‘being at sea’ generates new avenues for research. During our exploratory expedition, we focused on applying a social lens to marine issues to analyze if and how sailing can be a generative medium for ocean-based social science research. Exploring the coastline and engaging with stakeholders along our route, we observed the myriad impacts and opportunities for the future of the human ocean: from regenerative economies that work in tandem with conservation to initiatives addressing habitat loss of important carbon sinks. Our interdisciplinary crew found the social space of the sailboat to create surprising nodes of collaboration, concluding that sailing is a valuable avenue for social science that opens new pathways for undertaking marine fieldwork.
Paper short abstract:
The dark, cold, hostile, unruly environment is an oft-repeated assertion about the seabed (Helmreich, 2009). This paper draws on the work of Helmreich (2011), sea as a theory machine, to provide alternative seabed meaning-making, surfacing messy relations between humans and seabed.
Paper long abstract:
A dark, cold, hostile environment or alien space is an oft-repeated assertion of the seabed (Helmreich, 2009). The stark social construction sketches the seabed as a submarine space devoid of humans, where geoscience is concerned only with the physical properties of the seabed. Nonetheless, the combination of the seabed with humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans has been removed from seabed discourses and narratives. To provide an alternative seabed meaning-making, this paper draws on the work of Helmreich (2011), the sea as a theory machine, to surface the inextricable human and seabed relations by re-visiting routine seabed uses. Re-visiting the seabed, in this case, is a process of remembering, reconnecting, rethinking, reimagining, and reconceptualizing or retheorizing the inextricable human and seabed relations. We use the example of seabed tin mining operations on Bangka and Belitung Islands in Indonesia to ponder the following questions; 1) How can thinking sea as a theory machine help surface inextricable relations between humans and the seabed? 2) How does the fluid, dynamic, and voluminous materiality of the sea (Steinberg and Peters, 2015) generate a different social construction of the seabed that spans multiple spatial and temporal dimensions? 3) How does the sea's materiality destabilize the fixed land-based territorial making used to govern the seabed uses?