Presentation short abstract

Both scientists and Indigenous practitioners engage with oceanic agency that exceeds control, yet frame these encounters differently. If scientists acknowledged co-production with oceanic assemblages rather than extraction from passive matter, they might traverse ontological distance.

Presentation long abstract

Political ecology scholarship on water's materiality has largely theorised from minority world perspectives, positioning the majority world as testing ground for Northern concepts. This paper offers theory emerging from South African oceanic contexts, examining how marine scientists and Indigenous knowledge holders both work with oceanic forces that exceed human control, yet recognise and articulate these encounters fundamentally differently.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa, I demonstrate how oceanic materiality actively participates in knowledge production across distinct epistemological frameworks. Scientists encounter oceanic agency through instrument breakdowns, model failures, and algorithmic limitations - moments when the sea refuses to cooperate with research protocols. Yet they typically frame these encounters as technical problems, maintaining a subject-object binary that positions oceans as passive matter. Indigenous practitioners, by contrast, explicitly recognize the ocean as kin, neighbour, or ancestor whose agency shapes human life and obligation. Knowledge emerges through sustained relations rather than extraction.

Building on Barad's intra-activity and Indigenous relational ontologies, I propose oceanic intra-activity as a concept emerging from majority world contexts that challenges Northern framings of water's materiality. This shared experience of working with oceanic forces offers potential grounds for epistemic engagement across ontological boundaries. If scientists acknowledged their practice as co-production with oceanic assemblages, they might traverse ontological distance toward Indigenous frameworks that centre relationality.

This paper contributes to (re)materializing political ecology by theorising from Southern perspectives on how oceanic materiality might enable reimagining relations between multiple ways of knowing in contexts marked by colonial hierarchies.