Kinship as critical idiom in oceanic studies

Decolonizing ocean spaces: Saltwater co-belonging and responsibilities

“…Together as sisters of ocean, sand, ice, and snow, they respond to “climate-damaging petro cultures” through a ceremony of gift-giving that includes shells, stones, and the exchange of stories (Fackler and Schultermandl 2022, 2). In a special issue of Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, led by Fackler and Schultermandl (2022), this performance sparks a decolonial approach to ocean kinship/kinlessness as a critical idiom and methodology for exploring transatlantic slavery, labour mobilities, as well as interspecies relations of belonging, care, and responsibility. Their performance values listening that reweaves interspecies relations.…”

“…Ocean kinship informed by Indigenous sovereignty and partnerships that are inclusive and meaningful, decolonize and reset relationships of governance amid fossil-fuel energy extraction, colonial injustice, system racism and inequalities in global power (Fackler and Schultermandl 2022; tebrakunna country and Lee 2019; Todd 2022; Winter 2021). This focus on “plural kinscapes” (Todd 2022, 3) decenters the consciousness of “Western scholars and elites” implicated in the creation of racial injustice, marine vulnerabilities, and inequities (Okafor-Yarwood 2022 , 2).…”

“…Rise , a video performance by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner from the Marshall Islands and Inuk writer Aka Niviâna (2022) from Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), speaks back to the legacies of “colonial monsters” that have sacrificed their oceanic homes threatened by melting glaciers and sea level rise. Together as sisters of ocean, sand, ice, and snow, they respond to “climate-damaging petro cultures” through a ceremony of gift-giving that includes shells, stones, and the exchange of stories (Fackler and Schultermandl 2022, 2). In a special issue of Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, led by Fackler and Schultermandl (2022), this performance sparks a decolonial approach to ocean kinship/kinlessness as a critical idiom and methodology for exploring transatlantic slavery, labour mobilities, as well as interspecies relations of belonging, care, and responsibility.…”

“…Kin-centric ecologies include affective relationships as well as ethical and political obligations of “response-ability” with more-than-human worlds, including ocean homes, living species, fossil kin, and ancestral spirits of Sea Country (Lobo et al 2022; Fackler and Schultermandl 2022; Haraway 2016; Todd 2022, 17). These reciprocal relationships and obligations of responsibility are often strengthened through the diversity of Indigenous and Southern laws, intergenerational storytelling, subaltern animal stories, poetry, religious and cultural ceremonies, as well as practices such as swimming, diving, surfing, rowing, and even contemporary Indigenous whaling that provide food security (Lobo et al 2022; Ingersoll 2016; McGarry, Walne and Mthombeni 2021; Sakakibara 2020; Waiti and Wheaton 2022).…”