Based on an ethnographic engagement with the Somali coast, this article reframes maritime piracy as an economy of protection linked to longer histories and contestations over trade, plunder, and profit in this region. Through the lens of protection, the article brings into view an emergent moral economy of piracy and ethical debates over the nature of work and trade, including the work of piracy in this oceanic space. Specifically, it brings to the forefront and argues for the analytical separation of two distinct processes and practices of Somali engagements with the sea. The first part locates the development of a ''sea of trade'' and the centrality of economies of protection within this maritime world. The second part of the argument emphasizes a ''sea of fish'' and the development of a licensing and rent-seeking regime off the coast of Somalia, from the 1970s onwards. The emergence of maritime piracy is located within these shifting currents and visions of the sea.

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From 2007–2012, a dramatic upsurge in maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia captivated global attention. Over three hundred merchant vessels and some three thousand seafarers were held hostage with ransom amounts ranging from $200,000 to $10 million being paid to release these ships. Somali piracy operated exclusively on a kidnap-and-ransom model with crew, cargo, and ship held captive until a ransom was secured. Ransom, unlike theft or seizure, requires willing parties and systems of exchange. Ransom economies, therefore, bring together disparate actors and make visible the centrality of protection as a mode of accumulation and jurisdiction. As an analytic, this article proposes an anthropology ofprotectionto undercut divides between legality and illegality, trade and finance, piracy and counter piracy. It argues that protection is key to apprehending processes of mobility and interruption central to global capitalism.