Oceanitude

Abstract

This chapter presents the counterhegemonic ideology to Isletism: “Oceanitude.” Coined in 2015 by ni-Vanuatu novelist Paul Tavo, Oceanitude is a literary, philosophical, and political current theorizing Pacific collective identity in times of nuclear imperialism and carbon imperialism. This philosophy challenges the Western-led glorification of Cartesianism, or the belief that (some hu)man(s) can become master and possessor of nature. Philosophers of Oceanitude suggest that in the Pacific, modes of being in the world stem from the consciousness of sharing a genealogical relationship with the ocean, which can only be protected collectively. Inspired by the anti-Cartesian Black liberation movement known as Negritude, Oceanitude can create new solidarities across islands and oceans and illuminate current struggles such as the fight against settler desecration from the Black Atlantic to Mauna Kea.