Fiona McCormack - Private Oceans: The Enclosure and Marketisation of the Seas

Anthropology, Culture and Society

Series Editors:
Jamie Cross, University of Edinburgh,
Christina Garsten, Stockholm University
and Joshua O. Reno, Binghamton University

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The Enclosure and Marketisation of the Seas

Fiona McCormack

First published 2017 by Pluto Press

345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright Fiona McCormack 2017

The right of Fiona McCormack to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 9915 7 Hardback

ISBN 978 0 7453 9910 2 Paperback

ISBN 978 1 7868 0138 8 PDF eBook

ISBN 978 1 7868 0140 1 Kindle eBook

ISBN 978 1 7868 0139 5 EPUB eBook

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England

Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America

Anthropology is a discipline based upon in-depth ethnographic works that deal with wider theoretical issues in the context of particular, local conditions to paraphrase an important volume from the series: large issues explored in small places. This series has a particular mission: to publish work that moves away from an old-style descriptive ethnography that is strongly area-studies oriented, and offer genuine theoretical arguments that are of interest to a much wider readership, but which are nevertheless located and grounded in solid ethnographic research. If anthropology is to argue itself a place in the contemporary intellectual world, then it must surely be through such research.

We start from the question: What can this ethnographic material tell us about the bigger theoretical issues that concern the social sciences? rather than What can these theoretical ideas tell us about the ethnographic context? Put this way round, such work becomes about large issues, set in a (relatively) small place, rather than detailed description of a small place for its own sake. As Clifford Geertz once said, Anthropologists dont study villages; they study in villages.

By place, we mean not only geographical locale, but also other types of place within political, economic, religious or other social systems. We therefore publish work based on ethnography within political and religious movements, occupational or class groups, among youth, development agencies, and nationalist movements; but also work that is more thematically based on kinship, landscape, the state, violence, corruption, the self. The series publishes four kinds of volume: ethnographic monographs; comparative texts; edited collections; and shorter, polemical essays.

We publish work from all traditions of anthropology, and all parts of the world, which combines theoretical debate with empirical evidence to demonstrate anthropologys unique position in contemporary scholarship and the contemporary world.

Jamie Cross
Christina Garsten
Joshua O. Reno

Thanks are due to so many people for their support in multiple ways during this project. I extend heartfelt appreciation to all my collaborators in New Zealand, Iceland, Hawaii and Ireland, who over the years have participated generously in my research. Particular thanks go to Angeline Greensill, John Hikuwai, Margaret Mutu, Waldo Houia, Katarina Edmonds, Nels Einarsson, Craig Severance, Kale Langlas, Kathy Kawelu, Siobhan McCormack, Marge McManus, Pearse Doherty, Seamie McIntyre, Gerry Early and John OBrien. I am grateful for the encouragement of my very dear colleagues in the Anthropology Programme at the University of Waikato, Aotearoa/New Zealand: Tom Ryan, Fraser Macdonald, Keith Barber, Michael Goldsmith, Judith Macdonald, Des Kahotea and Apo Aporosa. Jacinta Forde, Luke Oldfield, Lily Brown, Steve Webster and Jon Altman have also dedicated their time to this project. I am especially thankful for the support of my husband, David Scott, and my father-in-law, Lawrie, who built me a garden office so I could write in peace. My children, Oisn, Ciara and Mila deserve special acknowledgement for their tolerance and empathy. Also, David Castle of Pluto Press has expertly guided me through the publishing process. Finally, my father, Patrick Joseph McCormack, deserves the utmost thanks. He has cast his critical eye over every word in this manuscript. I dedicate this book to him and to my mother, Renata McCormack.