How Oceans Become

An anthology grounded in the idea that oceans are human realities, shaped by human interests, interactions, and technologies. Historically and geographically diverse, oceans exist in the plural. Oceans become oceans through how they are represented, what resources they are deemed to hold, and the regulatory governance to which they are subjected. These are the three key components of “ocean making” this volume employs to shed light on the complex issues facing ocean governance today. The anthology reaches back to the oceans of the early modern European expansion and up to the current concerns of anthropogenic changes and resource depletion. Chapters address activities and regulatory concerns regarding maritime transport, fisheries, deep-sea mining, wave energy, and whaling, and span from the southern oceans around Antarctica to the current shedding of the icy mantle of the Arctic Ocean. By drawing together scholars from a wide range of disciplines—including history, comparative literature, media studies, political science, law, and anthropology—How Oceans Become opens a multi-layered, interdisciplinary approach to studying the oceans’ entanglements with human cultures and societies.