"The ocean at the heart of humanity"
"The perspective of humanities and social sciences on maritime issues"
-French historian Alain Corbin talked in 1998
of the "domain of emptiness"
in his book "Le territoire du vide"
with the subtitle "The West and the call of the shore".
We could also, similarly to geographer Roland Paskoff,
talk about the "domain of excess".
30% of the world population lives near the coastline
and demographers are expecting significant increases
with coastal populations going from 680 million today
to over 1 billion in 2050.
Maritime routes see more and more traffic
and this is occurring on all continents.
Battle is raging in the Arctic over considerable stakes.
In order to understand the ocean and what ties human beings to it,
we have to look into works from humanities and social sciences.
This reflects the diversity of approaches based on these disciplines,
such as economics, anthropology, history, psychology,
sociology, law, political science,
and of the issues connected to these areas,
overexploitation, coastal hazards, inequalities, power issues,
regulations of accesses and practices.
Now, at the time of what we call the Anthropocene,
we understand how vulnerable the ocean is,
but we also know that populations, near or far from the coast,
will be affected.
The social, cultural and economic contexts vary
from one area to another and one time to another.
How do human beings see the ocean?
What activities do they practice there?
Do they all have access to these spaces and benefit from its amenities?
What services is it providing to humans?
What are the related pollution and submersion risks?
Which actors are involved in its management?
-The ocean is a shared space
where many new usages have been emerging and growing for many decades.
This creates a situation where a number of risks can appear
for the environment, for societies, for the economy
as well as potential conflict risks.
Therefore, we have to consider the ocean not as an ecosystem,
but as a socio-ecological system.
This socio-ecological system is represented by dynamics
based on the interactions
between natural habitats and human societies,
as well as by interactions about the ocean within human societies.
This is why it is interesting
to mobilize various disciplines from the humanities and social sciences
in order to have a better grasp of these interactions within societies
and between societies and natural habitats.
Among these disciplines,
some focus on describing individual behaviors,
such as psychology for instance,
others focus more on understanding social dynamics,
such as sociology or economics as well as law.
Lastly, some will focus on symbol systems,
such as psychology or anthropology.
They all express themselves at various spatial and time scales,
which requires to rely on geography as well as history.
If we are able to offer an integrated diagnostic
that mobilizes all disciplines
of our socio-ecological system,
we will have more keys to better manage the ecosystems,
to understand their dynamics
and lastly to aim towards more sustainability.
"Mobilizing humanities and social sciences to better understand the ocean"
"Examples of research studies"
-Alix Levain takes an anthropological approach
to analyze marine pollutions.
As they become visible on the shore,
such as green algae proliferating,
it is important to identify what they have to say
about the social and cultural transformations
as well as past events
in order to better understand the related issues
that go beyond the merely environmental aspects.
Still in anthropology,
Émilie Mariat-Roy studies
our depictions and representations of the marine environment
that rely on our socio-biographical backgrounds and experiences
and stem from the cultures we belong to.
Revealing this diversity and the ongoing evolutions
helps shed light on the diversity of practices and knowledge.
Valérie Deldrève and Cécilia Claeys, both sociologists,
highlight inequalities regarding access to coastal spaces and their amenities
in metropolitan France and the overseas territories.
Relatively few people have studied environmental justice in France
while it is a major topic to understand conflicts and inequalities.
Lastly, Jean-Eudes Beuret encourages us
to consider marine areas and their development.
He emphasizes three topics,
the governance of spaces that combines a variety of actors,
the ever-present conflicts
that can lead to innovations or hindrances,
and acceptance,
which should tend more towards appropriation than resignation.
-Economist Rémi Mongruel
is going to tackle the issue of ecosystem services,
so the benefits provided by nature to human societies.
Historian Daniel Faget will talk about fishing
and how fishery history can lead us to new practices
when it comes to the sustainability of exploitation and fishery stocks.
Psychosociologist Elisabeth Guillou is going to tell us
why social representations are crucial
to grasp issues relating to sea-level rise.
Legal expert Florence Galletti will be broaching
the issues of marine planning
and the law in connection to marine pollution.
-The presentations in this section cannot exhaustively cover
all research studies that exist today
or all territories and time periods.
However, they will show that humanities and social sciences
are necessary to our knowledge of these spaces.
Other examples which are not included in these videos,
invasive marine species, immigration through maritime routes,
conflicts arising over the implantation of offshore wind turbines,
health, maritime routes,
all these topics are emerging and need to be studied.
This outline may make it seem
that humanities and social sciences work in a silo.
It may sometimes be the case,
but interdisciplinarity is very often present
and especially interesting to develop.
It can be a form of interdisciplinarity within social sciences
that combines history, anthropology, law and economics
or with fellow researchers from life, earth or climate sciences.