The Unequal Ocean


Book Description

Based on a decade of ethnographic and archival research in Peru, this volume reveals how prevailing representations of the ocean obscure racialized disparities and the ways that different people experience the impacts of the climate crisis. Tackling important subjects of global concern, the author presents a complex image of Peru’s global seascapes as historical spaces comprising precarious worlds that expose people, nonhuman species, and places to unequal levels of harm. He traces how powerful actors in Peru represent the ocean in ways that erase the systemic inequalities, histories of uneven development, and extractive violence that have shaped ocean life. These erasures underscore the need for alternative representations of the ocean that highlight the engagements and commitments that make oceanic ecologies possible, as well as the material relationships and unequal positions of different people and species within them. The author analyzes a multitude of timely topics, including waves and coastal development, the circulation of ocean waste, El Niño warming events, and the extraction of jumbo squid. This book also addresses expanding scholarly interest in the world’s oceans as sites for thinking about social inequities, environmental politics, and multispecies relationships.




The Unequal Ocean


Book Description

"Based on a decade of ethnographic and archival research in Peru, Life and Inequality in the Eastern Pacific reveals how dominant representations of the ocean obscure racialized disparities in the ways that different people experience the impacts of the climate crisis. In contrast, the readings offered in this book of waves and coastal development, the circulation of ocean waste, El Niño warming events, and the extraction of jumbo squid draw on experiences and ways of knowing that have been submerged by widely circulating interpretations of the Anthropocene's oceans. Life and Inequality in the Eastern Pacific presents a complex image of Peru's global seascapes as historical spaces comprised of precarious more-than-human life worlds that are tenuously arranged to expose people, non-human species, and places to unequal levels of harm. He traces how powerful actors in Peru represent the ocean through semiotic processes of translation, decontextualization, and erasure. Recognizing the significance of these processes is important for understanding not only how critical aspects of climatological and ecological crises are erased in public discourse, but also for revealing how racializing and classist discourses are inserted into discussions about climate change and environmental problems. This book also addresses expanding scholarly interest in the world's oceans as sites for thinking about social inequalities, environmental politics, and multispecies relationships"--




Oceans


Book Description

This unique tie-in to the major motion picture "Oceans"--presented by Disney & "National Geographic"--explores the health of the oceans, and reveals what people can do to improve the health of our seas.




Gender and the Law of the Sea


Book Description

Listen to the podcast with Nilufer Oral on 'Climate Change, Oceans and Gender' In Gender and the Law of the Sea a distinguished group of law of the sea and feminist scholars critically engages with one of the oldest fields of international law. While the law of the sea has been traditionally portrayed as a technical, gender-neutral set of rules, of concern to States rather than humans, authors in this volume persuasively argue that critical feminist perspectives are needed to question the underlying assumptions of ostensibly gender-neutral norms. Coming at a time when the presence of women at sea is increasing, the volume forcefully and successfully argues that legal rules are relevant to ensure gender equality and the empowerment of women at sea, in an effort to render law for the oceans more inclusive. See inside the book.




Living with the Sea


Book Description

The seas and oceans are currently taking centre stage in academic study and public consciousness. From the plastics littering our seas, to the role of climate change on ocean currents from unequal access of marine resources to the treacherous experiences of seafarers who keep our global economy afloat; now is a crucial time to examine how we live with the sea. This ambitious book brings together an interdisciplinary and international cohort of contributors from within and beyond academia. It offers a range and diversity of insights unlike previous collections. An ‘oceanic turn’ is taking place, with a burgeoning of academic work that takes seriously the place of seas and oceans in understanding socio-cultural and political life, past and present. Yet, there is a significant gap concerning the ways in which we engage with seas and oceans, with a will to enliven action and evoke change. This book explores these challenges, offering insights from spatial planning, architectural design, geography, educational studies, anthropology and cultural studies. An examination through these lenses can help us to better understand human relationships with the seas and oceans, and promote an ethic of care for the future.










Oceans of Grain


Book Description

An "incredibly timely" global history journeys from the Ukrainian steppe to the American prairie to show how grain built and toppled the world's largest empires (Financial Times). To understand the rise and fall of empires, we must follow the paths traveled by grain—along rivers, between ports, and across seas. In Oceans of Grain, historian Scott Reynolds Nelson reveals how the struggle to dominate these routes transformed the balance of world power. Early in the nineteenth century, imperial Russia fed much of Europe through the booming port of Odessa, on the Black Sea in Ukraine. But following the US Civil War, tons of American wheat began to flood across the Atlantic, and food prices plummeted. This cheap foreign grain spurred the rise of Germany and Italy, the decline of the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, and the European scramble for empire. It was a crucial factor in the outbreak of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. A powerful new interpretation, Oceans of Grain shows that amid the great powers’ rivalries, there was no greater power than control of grain.







Biennial Report...


Book Description