BIOrdinary Ocean Day - Fluid Scales & Sea Times Peoples, marine creatures and concepts beyond terracentric visions

Over the last decade anthropology has turned to bodies of water as social, cultural, and  economic spaces, a move that Helmreich (2023) names the “Oceanic churn”. Oceans cover  more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, yet a terracentric approach still pervades much of  anthropological research. How can we move beyond terracentrism to embrace oceanic  perspectives that challenge our theoretical frameworks, epistemologies, and ontologies? 

The goal of BIOrdinary Ocean Day is to learn from anthropologists focusing their research on  oceans, seascapes and rivers, with an emphasis on the multifaceted life-forms and projects  unfolding in these spaces. The day’s speakers investigate climate-change induced  transformations of more-than-human marine ecologies, fluid dispossessions emerging out of  aquaculture scalability, and the trajectories of mobile sea creature and their involvements in  shifting biodiversities. The aquacentric perspectives that we explore raise questions that  unsettle land-based concepts and epistemologies. The unboundedness of the sea, for  example, forces us to rethink ideas of territory and current property regimes, and ask instead  how the ocean creates visions of both limitless capitalist expansion and future multispecies  commons (Lien 2023). Similarly, heat and mobility become important topics. While the ocean  acts as a vital buffer for land-dwellers against the impacts of climate change, an aquacentric  perspective reveals how oceans are places of mass migration, as sea creatures become some  of the first climate refugees.   

By engaging with fluid scales, sea times, and fishy mobilities, the BIOrdinary Ocean Day seeks  to unmoor anthropology and explore how stuff – inhabitants, concepts and methods – appear  from the perspective of the sea and river. The day consist of seven presentations or  provocations followed by longer, open discussions about topics and themes raised by the  presenters.