A maritime turn and ocean ontologies in critical heritage studies

ABSTRACT

This paper calls for a maritime turn in critical heritage theory. Drawing on recent work on ocean and maritime ontologies, it takes up the idea of the ‘ocean in excess’ to argue for a maritime imagination that overcomes the separation of land from water, culture from nature. The paper begins by sketching out the terracentric norms that have come to underpin critical theory around cultural heritage. From there, recent insights on ocean ontologies are cited to show how they can open up new ways of thinking about existing strands of critical heritage work. The second half of the paper turns to the issue of ocean governance and the complex politics that arise from competing ontologies. This provides the foundation for a discussion of the transoceanic heritage discourses that are now emerging, as countries seek regional, come global influence in world affairs. Understanding these and other developments requires moving beyond the earthly, such that we more robustly engage with a multivalent heritage politics that operates across air, water and land.

KEYWORDS:

• Oceans
• maritime
• civilisation
• Indian Ocean
• heritage diplomacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The author would like to thank those members of the Inter-Asia Engagements Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, NUS, who offered invaluably detailed and tough feedback on the first draft of this paper. This greatly helped focus the argument of the piece, and remove distractions.

2. See Steinberg and Peters (2015) ‘Wet Ontologies, Fluid Spaces: Giving Depth to Volume through Oceanic Thinking’, Environment and planning. D, Society & space, 33(2), pp. 247–264.

3. Speech available at: https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/pardo_ga1967.pdf, Accessed 01 March 2023

4. See for example: State Council Information Office ‘Global Civilization Initiative injects fresh energy into human development’ 19 March 2023, Available at http://english.scio.gov.cn/topnews/2023–03/19/content_85177312.htm, Accessed on 01 March 2023.

5. For a discussion of how the Bharatiya Janata Party Government uses vasudhaiv kutumbakam in international settings, a term that broadly translates as Indian civilisation providing leadership for a ‘one family’ world, see Singh and Winter (2023)

6. See Kishida, F (2023) ‘The Future of the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s New Plan for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific – Together with India, as an Indispensable Partner, Speech given in New Delhi, 20 March, 2023. Available at: www.mofa.go.jp/files/100477791.pdf, Accessed on 01 March 2023.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim Winter

Tim Winter is Cluster Leader, Inter-Asian Engagements and Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He was previously Professorial Future Fellow of the Australian Research Council. His recent articles on the past as a vector of diplomacy, geopolitics and nationalism are published in Geopolitics, International Affairs, International Journal of Cultural Policy, and his latest books are Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty First Century (University of Chicago Press 2019) and The Silk Road: Connecting Histories and Futures (Oxford University Press, 2022).