Only within the last couple decades have social science and humanities scholars intentionally taken their disciplines offshore and into the depths of the sea. Academic and policy circles now recognize the justification for interdisciplinary ocean research.
Such efforts have brought attention to the ocean’s importance to every aspect of our lives. This turn has not discovered our relations with the oceans anew, but has given voice to, and legitimized connections that ocean-minded peoples have long known, but which have been largely ignored by policy makers and institutions. Moving forward, researchers are calling for projects that engage in “critical ocean studies” that are more inclusive in their perspectives and can offer better frameworks and practices for living under the Anthropocene. This is the project of marine political ecology. It is a perspective of joining critical politics with environmental study to transcend typical boundaries in light of our changing planet.
Indeed, within this “oceanic turn”, the ocean itself exceeds individual disciplines or narrow categorizations. Yet, as scholars we often engage it piecemeal, discussing the ocean as the element of water or its waves, other times as fish, petroleum, mineral, or sand resources, and increasingly as data, archive, or media. Outside of academic discussions, ocean management practices commonly disassemble ocean spaces and ecosystems into disparate parts by sector or jurisdiction. The preamble to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the proclaimed constitution of the oceans, declares “the problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be considered as a whole”. Yet, this statement is followed by two hundred pages dedicated to dividing up the world’s oceans into fragments based on boundaries, species, uses, users, depths, and mobilities. It finishes without ever putting the pieces back together again, towards recognizing its connections and relations.
Read more from this article in the HIFMB Newsletter #01/21 here:
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