by Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa
It was in May 2017 that I became stealthy seawall walker, when I finally mastered the fear of losing my footing, clamored atop some loose concrete to gingerly tread the length of about half a mile above northern Manila´s cinereous-gray breakwaters.
A dike in the making, Navotas City, Metro Manila
Continue reading “Walling the Coast: Notes from Metro Manila”
by Hannah Fennell
For many fishermen, fishing is much more than a job- it is a way of life, providing fishers with a sense of satisfaction, a connection to the environment and, ultimately, with an identity and a community that spans across the globe. The Orkney Islands is a small archipelago located off the north coast of Scotland, with an inshore fishing fleet of over 100 boats, the majority of which are under 10m in length. Lobsters and brown and velvet crabs are the most valuable species to the fishery, and this is reflected in the presence of two crab-processing factories on the islands. My work with Orkney’s fishing community is grounded largely in assessing the value of the industry to the communities. While I originally began exploring the values of the industry through an economic lens, it was through interviewing and speaking to fishermen and their families I found that the values of the industry extend far beyond the price per kilo of a crab.
by Cormac Walsh
In late 2017 / early 2018 two Special Issues of international journals (Global and Planetary Change and Humanities) were published which together constitute the Humanities for the Environment Report 2018 (HfE 2018). The HfE 2018 Report provides key examples of how “humanities research reveals and influences human capacity to perceive and cope with environmental change” and seeks to change perceptions of the Environmental Humanities (Holm & Brennan 2018, p. 1). Both Special Issues emanated from the European Observatory of the broader worldwide Humanities for the Environment initiative. In this context, the term humanities is defined very broadly to include the social sciences. The editors and authors focus very deliberately on the actual and potential role of the humanities and social sciences in relation to contemporary environmental challenges. The first Special Issue, edited by Poul Holm and Charles Travis, seeks to engage with the earth science readership of Global and Planetary Change. In what follows, I focus, quite selectively, on key insights from the Humanities Special Issue and in particular the introductory text (Holm & Brennan 2018) and the article of Billing et al (2017) on sectoral, policy and academic visions for the marine environment. Specifically, I focus on two insights concerning societal adaptation to change and the concept of ‘world-views’. Continue reading “Humanities for the Environment Report 2018: Some Reflections”
by Cormac Walsh, Frieda Gesing, Rapti Siriwardane
On January 23rd 2017 an interdisciplinary roundtable workshop took place at Hamburg University to explore questions of epistemology relating to the coast and marine. The concept of epistemology in its original philosophical sense refers to theory of knowledge. The term coastal and marine epistemologies has slightly broader connotations, signifying a plurality of alternative ways of knowing and conceptualizing the coast and marine , both within and beyond the academy (cf. Miller et al. 2008, Siriwardane-de Zoysa & Hornidge 2016).
Continue reading “How we Started: From Roundtable Workshop to Research Blog”
Marine Coastal Cultures 