Ocean governance and maritime security in a placeful environment: The case of the European Union

Abstract

Adopting a critical geopolitics approach that accounts for the mutually reinforcing link between geo-informed narratives and power projection practices, this article proposes that ocean governance and maritime security have translated into states' and regional organisations' increasing control over maritime spaces. This leads to a certain territorialisation of the sea, not so much from a sovereignty and jurisdictional perspective but from a functional and normative perspective. The article starts by discussing the ways oceans have been represented and shows that they are far from a placeless void, both in practice and in discourse. The article then frames the analysis of ocean governance and maritime security within critical geopolitics, and elaborates on the case of the European Union's narrative and practice. It concludes on the mutually reinforcing link between discourse and practice in the field of ocean governance and maritime security in general, and on the consequences in terms of power projection for the EU in particular. Scholars working on ocean governance and maritime security are encouraged to challenge the traditional view that oceans are placeless.

The blue economy: Identifying geographic concepts and sensitivities

“…Diverse institutional investment projects within the BE narrative need to be analysed using geographic assemblage thinking to identify each initiative's bioeconomic relations, ethical and political challenges, and how bioeconomic relations can be established within the discourse (Winder & Le Heron, ). Extending assemblage approaches even further to incorporate the fluidity of the oceans, or the “aquatic liveliness” of the oceans, establishes new challenges within the BE that reveal a number of themes: (1) different ocean spaces may be experienced and valued in the maritime domain differently; (2) the resistance the ocean may have towards the BE; (3) and the potential degree of control a state can have on the ocean (Brewer, ; Foley, ; Germond & Germond‐Duret, ). For example, incorporating “aquatic liveliness” into understanding the possibility of ecological systems laying outside of the economic zone of a nation (Alexander & Graziano, ) will ultimately reveal the ocean's ability to cause socio‐spatial and scalar conflicts in the BE through its mobility across spatial contexts.…”

“…Finally, from the positionality of some nation-states, development in marine and ocean spaces is perceived as an expansion of capitalist space in areas that are recognised as "underdeveloped frontier spaces" that could be better used as a capitalist economic growth model (Choi, 2017 andGermond andGermond-Duret, 2016). For other nationstates, this development of marine space is intrinsically a "spatial intervention" (re)arranging people and marine resources to maximise their economic utility (Choi, 2017, p. 39).…”

“…The EU's BE practices, for example, demonstrate and justify ocean governance and maritime security, therefore making it a driver for BE development and growth (Voyer et al, 2018). However, their narratives of ocean governance and maritime security still consist of placeful and placeless representations (Germond & Germond-Duret, 2016), and this can misconstrue proper and effective sustainable ocean management.…”

“…Numerous implementations and perspectives of the BE emerge from international, supranational, and national institutions. For example, Winder and Le Heron () call for increased critical—and practical—engagement with the BE, while previous research has sought to clarify the ontological separation of land and sea (Bear, ); others have conceptualised the BE as a complex governmental project that opens up new governable spaces and rationalises particular ways of governing (Choi, ; Germond & Germond‐Duret, ). The focus of this paper therefore addresses what we view as an important gap in knowledge by questioning the idea of a unified definition of BE development.…”

Extraction in Four Dimensions: Time, Space and the Emerging Geo(-)politics of Deep-Sea Mining

“…This renewed attention on the sea has emphasised its vibrancy as a space that is more than a static means of connection between places (Steinberg 2013) and is, instead, a geophysical actor with political agency (Lehman 2013). Put into conversation with notions of ocean governance and maritime security, this thinking demands that the sea seen as 'placeful' rather than a lawless, 'placeless void' (Germond and Germond-Duret 2016). This is ever more the case, the deeper one goes.…”