Anne-Flore Laloë - The Geography of the Ocean: Knowing the ocean as a space

First published 2016

by Routledge

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2016 Anne-Flore Lalo

The right of Anne-Flore Lalo to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Lalo, Anne-Flore, author.

Title: The geography of the ocean: knowing the ocean as a space /

by Anne-Flore Lalo.

Description: Farnham, Surrey, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2016. |

Series: Studies in historical geography | Includes bibliographical

references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015041448 (print) | LCCN 2015046650 (ebook) |

ISBN 9781409421436 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781409421443

(ebook) | ISBN 9781472400857 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: OceanHistory. | Ocean and civilization. |

Historical geography. | Discoveries in geographyHistory.

Classification: LCC GC29.L35 2016 (print) | LCC GC29 (ebook) |

DDC910.9162dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041448

ISBN: 978-1-4094-2143-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-55774-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Human geographers have, overall, an ambiguous relationship with the ocean. At times, they ignore it, thereby reducing their study to the earths land surfaces; their geographical perspective thus finds itself incomplete and ignorant of what it might be missing. In other instances, coastlines are considered and their inherent liminality explored, both as regards what is found along it and on either side of it, though the ocean itself is not fully engaged with. In these cases, the ocean helps define the land or coast by opposition, saying what it is not. Finally, when thought is given to the ocean beyond its coasts, it is usually limited to specific discourses on environmental history, the plundering of oceanic resources or complex issues regarding territorial waters and, again, resources. In these instances, the ocean is considered primarily for what it contains or potentially contains, not as a space in itself. This materialistic approach divorces the ocean as a container of resources from the ocean as a space. The ocean itself, therefore, with its physical attributes, wavering surface, tidal rhythms and unbounded connectivity, and what these characteristics mean for human and nonhuman interrelations with it, are rarely at the center of human geographers oceanic engagement. Studies might capitalize on one of these aspects, either directly or metaphorically, but, on the whole, this means that the understanding of the geographical ocean generally falls short of engaging with the ocean as a geographical space. This book will address this issue and demonstrate that a wholly geographical study of the ocean is both possible and fruitful. Furthermore, it will show that such an approach enables geographers to engage critically with traditional geographical concerns such as mobility, governance, and cartography in novel ways that fully comprehend the specific mobilities, spatialities, and materialities of the ocean. This will reveal an ocean that can fully be a part of geographical discourse, rather than sitting at its fringes, and will crucially move toward a truly global sense of geography. This geographical ocean is what will be called the ocean-space.