![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper examines power relations along the African coast of the Indian Ocean in terms of space and time. Spatial strategies, it argues, are swiftly emerging through zoning mechanisms which territorialise the governance of ocean space. These strategies can supplement and disrupt more traditional temporal strategies, which facilitate speed and freedom of movement for commercial and military traffic. The article focusses on the US proposition to provide maritime security sector reform to African coastal states as a form of temporal strategy designed to shape new zoning practices in favour of freedom of movement. The paper concludes by arguing that the US strategy implies a policing approach that generates maritime surveillance capacities along land–sea lanes of communication. It contrasts this surface form of knowledge with the need for African coastal states to generate the sort of oceanographic data presently undergirding the emerging blue economies of Europe.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge permission granted by The Stimson Center, 1111 19th Street NW, Twelfth Floor, Washington, DC 20036, United States of America to reproduce , Jurisdictional claims in the Indian Ocean region.
Notes
1. Under Article 57 LOSC gives a coastal state the right to establish an EEZ extending up to 200 nautical miles seaward. Within this zone the State has preferential fishing rights and exclusive control over the exploitation of mineral resources (Forbes, Citation1995, p. 78).
2. From the west through the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Madagascar, from the north through the Bab el-Mandeb in the Red Sea and the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, from the east through the Straits of Malacca, the Sunda and Lombok Straits and the Ombai–Wetar Straits.
3. Australia's reservations on the limits of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean, for instance.
5. The IHO has recognised the following seas and bays on the Indian Ocean: 5.1, Mozambique Channel; 5.2, Gulf of Suez; 5.3, Gulf of Aqaba; 5.4, the Red Sea; 5.5, the Gulf of Aden; 5.6, the Persian Gulf; 5.7, the Strait of Hormuz; 5.8, the Gulf of Oman; 5.9, the Arabian Sea; 5.10, the Lakshadweep Sea; 5.22, the Gulf of Mannar; 5.12, the Palk Strait and Palk Bay; 5.13, the Bay of Bengal; 5.14, the Andaman Sea; 5.15, the Timor Sea including the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, an indentation of the Timor Sea; 5.16, the Arafura Sea including the Gulf of Carpentaria; and 5.17, the Great Australian Bight.
6. The word ‘taxonomy’ derives from the Greek τάξις, taxis meaning ‘order’ or ‘arrangement’.
8. Ibid.
9. Emphasis in original.
10. Zonal forms of governance work with the same aim but operate from urban planning blueprints rather than being based on law enforcement (Ryan Citation2013).
12. The Area is ‘the sea-bed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof beyond the limits of national jurisdiction’ in Article 1.1 of UCLOS III – the Law of the Sea Convention (1982).
14. Coastal Automatic Identification System networks and Long Range Identification and Tracking; Vessel Monitoring System, International Maritime Organization mandatory reporting sites, and vessel tracking and traffic management services, to mention a few.
15. South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius, Seychelles and, on behalf of France, Reunion and Crozet Islands. Data has also been lodged by Mozambique, Tanzania, Somalia and the Comoros Islands.