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Contribution short abstract:

How to adjust our ethnographic sensibility and practice to appreciate the temporal “breadths” of marine research at sea? Based on fieldwork onboard a marine biology research vessel, I query how ethnography can attend to the multiple temporalities imploding during fieldwork at sea.

Contribution long abstract:

In this intervention I draw on my fieldwork onboard an oceanographic research vessel off the Scottish coast. For two weeks I worked alongside marine scientists investigating the ecology of almost-extinct biogenic reefs and their future role in rewilding the North Sea. I reflect on how the short expedition and the tight schedule of a research vessel - a scarce resource always in high demand - shifts understandings about ethnographic time and rhythm. The scientific crew onboard changes according to the research objective and discipline, conducting research that is (often) part of larger research programmes. Like other types of working vessels, research activities onboard happen in parallel and often around the clock, leaving little to no time for diligent ethnographic diary entries. During the expedition, moreover, I contracted chickenpox, which required me to quarantine for a while and further reduced the short time I had for research onboard. How to adjust our ethnographic sensibility and practice, which often equates long fieldwork with the establishment of “depth” (Günel & Watanabe 2024), to appreciate the temporal “breadths” of marine research at sea? On research vessels different ethnographic temporalities and timescapes (Fabian 2014; Bensaude-Vincent 2022) intersect simultaneously: from that of environmental transitions, to the ones of research programmes and research expeditions respectively. Fieldwork at sea further highlights other temporalities within the research process, as I and my interlocutors begun and continued our own research activities before and after the expedition. How do we attend to the multiple temporalities imploding in ethnographic fieldwork at sea?

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Contribution short abstract:

Doing ethnography on board a research vessel condenses the ethnographic experience, quickly blurring the lines between the research and the personal. By understanding research vessels as locations of rupture, we can better understand the entanglements of epistemic and affective lifeworlds at sea.

Contribution long abstract:

Doing ethnography on board a research vessel condenses the ethnographic experience, quickly blurring the lines between the fieldsite and the private, the research and the personal.

Anthropologists have long debated the possibility of bounded physical fieldsites in ethnographic research, especially in the face of globalization and increasingly mobile ways of life (Metcalf 2001; Appadurai 1990). Research vessels are in many ways bounded physical fieldsites par excellence: once on the ship, there is no way off, whether in the event of serious injury or even death. Much of what is observed by the ethnographer is also experienced--arguments, fatigue, sickness, blurring of relational boundaries, and personal loss. The outer limits of the research vessel, imposed by the uninhabitable expanse of the ocean, simultaneously confine and generate new epistemic and affective constellations.

Research vessels can therefore be understood as locations of rupture (c.f. Holbraad, Kapferer & Sauma 2019). Research and personal life are both ruptured on ship, creating new constellations and temporalities of affect within epistemic life worlds of sea researchers and ethnographers alike. Routines, structures (both physical and social), and experiments themselves must be adapted and compressed onto the ship, which is constantly asking scientists to change plans and work together under pressure in order to adjust the course of their research according to the ever-changing conditions afforded by the vessel. Attention to the brief but highly intense moments which constitute life at sea highlight the ways in which epistemic and affective lifeworlds become intimately intertwined in the making of scientific knowledge.

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Contribution short abstract:

For my PhD I observe and learn from fishermen of a Tunisian archipelago, Kerkennah. How to describe the relationship that a female researcher with an Italian passport (as I am) has with male Tunisian fishermen while living on a small wooden boat in the middle of the sea?

Contribution long abstract:

I began to deeply consider what research at sea could mean during my master's years with the Ermenautica-Saperi in Rotta project. This project has been developed within the university’s walls and on board a sailing boat with some professors and colleagues. This sailing, offered us the opportunity to see the Mediterranean from a new perspective and encouraged us to questioning of how to relate to any 'other' such as human, sea, fish... from which we are not so independent, as we tend to represent or consider ourselves.

Deepening on these reflections was at the center of my PhD project, which aims to observe from Kerkennah’s fishermen how they live and work at sea. The sea around Kerkennah has shallow water for many miles, so sailing is generally calm and the average fisherman's fishing days are no more than three nights at sea. On the west coast, platforms of Franco-Tunisian companies extract hydrocarbons; in the south, the transformation of phosphate - to be exported to Europe - releases toxic waste into the sea and air; to the north, the proximity to Lampedusa, makes this stretch of sea crossed by routes illegalized by an increasingly rigid border regime.

How to stay in the complexity of these dynamics, in a sea that has been assigned the role of a deadly border?

Considering the need to represent the specificity of the place where research is carried out to be relevant, how can the noise or the swaying of the sea be put into writing?

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Contribution short abstract:

This research studies wind propulsion initiatives for commercial cargo transport. What are the discursive and substantive configurations of such projects across different geographies? How are they impacting the transition towards decarbonisation in the maritime transport sector?

Contribution long abstract:

Without international shipping, the world economy as we know it would not exist: grappling with geopolitical tensions and major disruptions in the logistics of “just-in-time” delivery, the sector not only transports massive amounts of fossil fuels, but also contributes to nearly 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which are expected to increase. While the sector’s current decarbonisation strategy predominantly focuses on energy efficiency measures and the uptake of alternative fuels, wind propulsion has been one forward-looking option employed by several companies.

The focus of this work is on wind propulsion initiatives for commercial cargo transport. The aim is to analyse the discursive and substantive configurations of such projects worldwide: values, organisational arrangements and financial situations. Why do they adopt a certain technology over another? This work also traces the emergence and historical development of wind propulsion as an alternative choice to conventional fossil-fuel based shipping. What does this reveal about the direction of a transition in the shipping sector?

Research on the sector’s energy transition employs in-depth and regionally focused case studies, or sociological accounts of alternative operating economies, with little attention to a comprehensive picture of wind propulsion development worldwide and overtime. To address this gap, this research employs socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA), an emerging methodology in sustainability transition literature, and qualitative comparative case study research. As a result, this work evaluates shifts and dynamics in the socio-technical configurations of wind propulsion systems across different geographies and analyses their transformative potential in light of decarbonisation pressures.

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Contribution short abstract:

In 2007-08, I was involved in a study of voyaging and non-instrument navigation among Polynesians in the southeastern Solomon Islands. I will examine obstacles we faced, from political resistance at the national level and local disputes to safety concerns and the absence of a seaworthy canoe.

Contribution long abstract:

Since the 1970s I have conducted research on wayfinding among Polynesians in the southwestern Pacific. In 2007-08, two prominent colleagues and I were involved in a study, funded by the US National Science Foundation, of inter-island voyaging and non-instrument navigation in the Vaeakau-Taumako region of the Solomon Islands' Temotu Province. This paper will examine the myriad obstacles we faced, from political resistance at the national level to suspicions and disputes within the local community, safety concerns of would-be sailors and their families, and the absence of a seaworthy voyaging canoe at the time of our project. I will describe how we navigated those obstacles, negotiating with critical government representatives, establishing friendly relations with most segments of the local population, working with islanders to repair available canoes, and finding alternatives to inter-island expeditions in traditional canoes. Such alternatives included extended interviews with respected navigators, expeditions within a few kilometers of the home island, and travel with a renowned navigator in a fiberglass motor canoe. I will describe the project's limited success and how we managed to achieve useful results despite the many challenges we faced.