Prioritizing the culture metric for transformative ocean management in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The Ecosystems Services (ES) approach to ocean management forms part of global initiatives to achieve sustainability. In a time of climate change and ocean depletion, ES is critical to an inclusive global ocean accounting and marine spatial planning (MSP). The ES approach proposes that nature offers a range of services to human populations which can be measured for integrated ocean management. The services identified in ES are thought to be usefully integrated into systems’ models for both retrospective analysis and future modelling. Recently, culture is identified as an important ecosystem service in ocean management. The System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) adopted and applied by the United Nations Statistical Commission Several scholars calls for the inclusion of culture in environmental economic accounting. However, and as argued in this article, for various reasons, culture is not easily circumscribed, and it offers its own epistemological foundation that may frame ocean ‘accounting’. The research presented in the article uses anthropological research methods to investigate, document and analyse the form and substance of coastal culture in South Africa. It is concluded that the transmaterial, temporal and processual nature of culture means that for South Africa and potentially Africa, a radical transformation of ecological discourse is necessary for a sufficiently dynamic ES approach that can apprehend the complexity of culture in Africa and the world.

Edited by:

• Matthew Weaver

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• ocean accounting
• South Africa
• heritage
• decoloniality

Introduction

Brazilian anthropologist Vivieros de Castro calls for the assertion of radical perspectivism to usher in transformative and empathetic forms of ecological change (Vivieros de Castro 1998). Drawing on de Castro’s work and insights from equally radical, post-humanist assessments (Kohn 2015; Braidotti 2016), I propose a reconsideration of the culture ‘metric’ for a more transformative ES approach. The rationale is that in the prevailing ES frame in South Africa (SA), the concept of culture appears to be informed by an anthropocentric, primordial and modernist perspective that ignores the processual, transmaterial and transtemporal elements of culture.¹ From this perspective and as argued in this article, culture’s parameters and includability in Ecosystems-Based Management (EBM) appears feasible and laudable. The view that culture should be included in ES frames and thereby, EBM, surfaces in several calls (Strand et al. 2022; Rivers et al. 2023 and also de Groot et al. 2005). This is despite concerns about the complexity of culture (Gee et al. 2017; ibid Strand et al. 2022, 2023) and whether culture can in fact be included in quantitative and predictive social-ecological systems (Pittaway et al. 2021). The concerns are to a certain extent, articulated by Pittaway et al. (2021), who argue that the global ocean accounting framework (as presented by the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA 2022) for instance), is limited in its effectiveness by the ‘aporetic complexity of key, interrelated fundamental commitments to ‘production and resources’, ‘inclusivity’, ‘optimal and just governance’ and ‘sustainable development’. In essence, social values are potentially not collapsible into social ‘accounts’. Social values emerge from individual experiences and shared values which change over time and cannot be determined beforehand, raising questions about whose values should be selected for the specified social and/or cultural accounts (abstract). Nevertheless, there is a vast debate on EBMs, ES frames and the inclusion of culture in cultural ecosystem services (CES). Costanza et al. (2017) reveal 17,000 articles on ecosystem services, including multiple debates on valuing natural assets via a review of SCOPUS in April 2017. Some of these debates include the problem of commensurability of data sets (Blythe and Cvitanovic 2020), spatial diversities and overlap of values (Vejre et al. 2010; da Silva et al. 2021).

Inclusion of the culture metric in Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is also perceived as key to equity in South Africa. If culture is considered in MSP, then it will lead to greater inclusion of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) as well as their indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) (see Strand et al. 2022; Rivers et al. 2023). This will permit, as some argue, greater possibilities for benefit sharing (Wynberg and Hauck 2014). IPLCs are, however, presented in such studies as cohesive and agreeable stewards of African ocean management. This article calls for closer scrutiny of culture in SA. It calls for interrogation of the dynamic political process of culture production, the anthropocentric and transma-terial dimensions of ocean management and the decentred position of humans in environmental conservation. Including IPLCs and culture in ES frames is not evidence of equity. One needs to interrogate indigenous world views, explore the diversity of cultural perspectives of nature, as well as the lived experience and substantive dynamism of culture and the political, posthuman and transmaterial qualities of cultural relations. Culture is not merely the exclusive outcome of intentional human effort nor is it an includable ‘metric’ in a system engendered in locations far from where it is practiced and lived. It is not an objectively identifiable result of socially meaningful and territorialized behaviours produced by humans. Culture is an ongoing result of a dialogical, multidimensional (i.e. transmaterial, spiritual, multitemporal, embodied and in the case of this article, aquapelagic or water-involving) intentioned processes between humans and the ocean. IPLCs are diverse, dynamic social formations with multiple intentions and logics.

The article therefore shows how hegemonic and colonial ideas of culture prevail in ocean management discourse and scholarship, as well as its far-reaching implications. The discussion resolves why it is that despite continental-level commitment to including culture in ocean management, few African states have ocean strategies that link culture to ocean development (Boswell et al. forthcoming). It is noted that in SA, the culture metric is absent from the national ocean strategy (Operation Phakisa) and from the draft SA Ocean Economy Masterplan (Boswell and Thornton 2021). The key question of the article is as follows: if culture is to be included in present frames of ocean management but it is found to be extraordinarily diverse and difficult to ‘include’, can and how can it be included in dynamic ES frames? Secondly, given what the data tell us about the dynamic form and substance of culture, is ‘inclusion’ still possible in an existing ES framework? Third and an important note in the conclusion, the issue of ‘inclusion’ itself may require interrogation, since and as the primary data reveals, culture has diverse ontologies in SA, and the ES approach is itself the outcome of a deliberative anthropocentric (and modernist, colonialist) process that excludes other forms of worlding (Pina-Cabral 2014). While there are indeed, global debates (i.e. in anthropology) on the concept of culture and its complexity, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (ME) important to EBM, omits direct references to culture and appears to advance a Cartesian view of human-nature relations, specifically humanity’s dependence on nature (UNEP 2003, p. 1). By contrast and by critically considering the concept of culture, a more dialogical, symbiotic relationship is noted between humanity and nature.

Beyond SA, the findings presented in this article compel a shift from monocultural ES approaches to marine spatial planning. The research reveals diverse mutualities in ocean relations, as well as a ‘pluriverse’ of knowledge forms and forms of being (Escobar 2018). Culture is also socially mediated. What researchers find in the ‘field’ is an already layered process of political and cultural production, as well as prioritization of social meaning and value. In SA, the apartheid regime systematically advanced rigid and primordial concepts of culture, obscuring dynamic cultural formations, concepts and ideas. In present times, South Africa, a country of nearly 60 million, where inhabitants speak more than 11 languages and share in a diversity of beliefs, culture is still largely publicly articulated in primordial terms.

The article begins with an overview of the system of environmental economic accounting and its relevance to marine spatial planning and an analysis of the culture concept in South Africa. It proceeds with the materials and methods of the research undertaken, the results of the research and the discussion of findings. It is concluded that for a culture to be properly prioritized and ‘included’ in ocean management, a radically transformed and dynamic ES approach may be needed.

Materials and methods

Anthropological field research in the form of primary data collection via participant observation and semi-structured interviews was conducted on the issue of human cultural and heritage relations with the sea and coast in South Africa from October 2020 to March 2022. The primary research involved more than 300 semi-structured interviews with individuals between the ages of 18–60 years old. The team² interviewed small-scale fishers (SSF) (those who belonged to fishing associations and those who did not), kelp collectors, fishermen’s life partners, small business owners directly reliant on fish stocks (i.e. a woman who had a crayfish processing factory), restaurant owners, chefs, real estate agents and managers in coastal towns, scholars and ‘experts’ in ocean management, women fishers, First Nations Indigenous peoples and their leaders, healer-diviners, recreational fishers, river fishers, leisure users of the ocean (surfers, swimmers) and small business people whose businesses indirectly rely on coastal sense of place (i.e. a jewellery company that makes sea-themed jewellery).

Semi-structured interviews conducted consisted of key questions and the expectation on the part of the interviewer, that interviewees would provide insight into matters relevant to the overall research. In terms of selected field sites anthropological field research was conducted from Port Nolloth in the Northern Cape Province to Cintsa in the Eastern Cape Province. The sites were chosen to achieve a comprehensive ethnographic understanding of human relations with the sea. The interviews were conducted in 30 coastal towns and communities. Key themes arising from the data were identified for further analysis and discussion. Of these themes, the issue of culture itself, as a measurable, circumscribable metric, was identified for study.

The interviews noted in this article were implemented in isiXhosa, Sotho, Afrikaans and English. The majority of those interviewed in the Eastern Cape Province were from the Xhosa ethnic group, the dominant ethnic group in the Eastern Cape Province. In the Northern and Western Cape provinces, mainly Afrikaans speakers were interviewed. In the southern Cape and Garden Route area (specifically Mossel Bay, George and the associated areas of Blanco and Pacaltsdorp), First Nations Khoisan leaders and community members from the Gourikwa and Korana groups were interviewed. These communities and individuals spoke KhoeKhoegoab or a blend of Nama and other Khoi languages, as well as Afrikaans and English. These interviews were transcribed and translated by researchers’ part of the author’s research team. Given linguistic diversity (and potential for misinterpretation), the translation of the questions noted in English, required careful deployment, where evident, questions were asked in Afrikaans or other languages preferred by the interviewees, except for the Khoi languages as the team lacked proficiency in these languages. The importance of respect to be given to elders necessitated requisite (and locally relevant) embodied behaviour when approaching and addressing elders. Sensitivity, specifically careful use of words and forms of active listening, was required in conversations regarding traumatic forced removals from coastal areas. In this regard, the team adopted a self-reflexive research methodology, remaining aware of their own embodied, intersubjective relations during fieldwork and the impact of such engagements on the research outcomes.

To enhance participation in the project, the inclusion criteria for the interviews were broad. Participants were selected based on their interest in ocean management and/or development, or their participation in small-scale fishing (SSF) or their direct or indirect dependence on the sea for livelihood. Participants were also selected from coastal communities. Each interview lasted between 30 minutes to 1 hour and took place in the interviewee’s home yard, workplace, house, or public space that is not within easy reach/hearing distance of other community members.

Eight key questions were asked and shaped the data. These form part of a suite of questions selected to ascertain the importance of the sea to interviewees, socioeconomic changes which have occurred in a location, ritual activities involving the sea and coast as well as the distinctive characteristics of coastal communities in South Africa versus their more inland counterparts. The questions leading to data in this article are as follows:

• (1) What does the sea mean to you? First memories of the sea and beach?

• (2) What are some of the major changes that have happened here over the past 20 years? Did these changes affect you? How and why?

• (3) What are some of the activities and rituals that you engage in when you come to the beach?

• (4) How common are these rituals? How often do you do them? How important are they to you and your community?

• (5) What does the word ‘heritage’ mean to you?

• (6) Have you ever heard about the sea being ‘cultural heritage’? what do you think of this?

• (7) In your view, how, if at all, does a coastal community differ from any other (i.e. inland) community?

• (8) Are there any values and practices connected to oceans health that you or your family practise here? Can you describe these?

Regarding the disaggregation of analytical criteria, heritage is an aspect of culture but in the interviews, participants interchangeably referred to heritage and culture, whether they discussed tangible heritage (buildings, artifacts and monuments) or intangible heritage (songs, rituals, orality). The interchangeability of culture and heritage alerted me to the possible perception of culture as a fixed entity since heritage was already cast as an authorised discourse of culture management in SA. In this regard, the research method also required Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of secondary sources chosen for the study. The rationale for using this approach is that it became evident that selected texts for secondary data contained ideological assumptions and beliefs about the form and substance of cultural heritage. The scrutiny of these texts included, for example, attention to silences Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004) on intangible cultural heritage (ICH), non-mention of indigenous peoples or rights, generalisations regarding community participation and use of technological terms that would make such texts inaccessible to a general public.

For analysis, the spiritual elements of culture encompassed both secular and religious beliefs, secular in the sense of belief in the spiritual dimensions of the natural order and religious in the sense of belief in a deity or ancestral powers in the present life. A distinction was also made in respect of animist belief, since animism (the perception of and belief in the sentience of seemingly insentient things), prevails in SA too.

While ethnicity is important in South Africa and continues to influence cultural values and practices, the data analysis did not overly focus on ethnicity, since it was realised that South Africans subscribe to multiple ethnicities and will express these identities for situational power and social meaning. However, the data analysis did consider ethnic and cultural claims, as these signal culturally valuable and variable perceptions of nature and the sea. The data collected was disaggregated by ethnicity, age (those younger and older than 60), gender and province. The data also considered the perspectives of self-professed ‘users’ of the ocean and, therefore, no analytical distinction was made between those occupying managerial or decision-making positions in ocean management and those who do not occupy such positions. The research team acknowledged that the research process itself is shaped by scholarly epistemologies and that these require interrogation as such ideologies are known to influence research perspectives, analytical frameworks and approaches. In this regard and on a daily basis during fieldwork, the team discussed the day’s research findings and considered issues related to decoloniality in research. Such reflections advanced understanding of how the culture metric may itself be a colonial concept.

The interviewees finally selected for the study were identified using purposive sampling followed by snowball sampling. The former approach was to achieve an as inclusive set of interviewees as possible given the time constraints of the study, as well as the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns in South Africa on the field research process. The second (snowball sampling) technique was to follow the networks of participants and thus seek to understand the importance of culture in ocean management, as well as prevailing concepts of the term. Ten social scientists (one historian, two audio-visual researchers and seven anthropologists and sociologists) assisted in collecting the data. The lead researcher coordinated the data analysis process, reviewing (and re-listening to) the audio-visual data for cues on interviewee responses to questions, identifying arising themes from the research, allocating interviews to the themes and cross-analysing with the team to ascertain which data would be best placed to enrich and support the discussion. Thus, a combined deductive (Azungah 2018) and inductive (Thomas 2006) data analysis approach was adopted, which allows for a holistic analysis of the data. The first approach follows predetermined themes and issues and the second considers themes arising from the interviews conducted. The research also adopted the earlier but still valuable multi-sited approach to ethnography (Marcus 1995), as well as Kohn’s (2015) call for an anthropology of ontologies, to which I return at the end of the discussion.

Initial analysis of the data indicated that interviewees defined culture in primordial terms. Further analysis revealed post-human, trans-material understandings of human-sea relations. This encouraged deeper reflection on these issues, which in turn led to a specific search for secondary data and literature on post-human, trans-material human relations with the sea (Vivieros de Castro 1998; Kohn 2013, 2015; Pina-Cabral 2014; Braidotti 2016; Escobar 2018). From these initial considerations, the hypothesis is that if currently circulating, primordial concepts of culture are not ubiquitous among indigenous and local peoples, then there should be more dynamic, inclusive ES approaches. Existing ES approach will not do, since culture is not a singular, bounded, includable metric in ocean management. Equally, SA is not a plural society, it is a profoundly creolized one with multiple cultural crossovers and exchange (Denis-Constant 2006).

The literature review and secondary data analysis yielded valuable information about the globalised, post-human, non-anthropogenic nature of culture, as well as the prevalence of ideological assumptions about culture in publicly available literature. The latter indicated colonialism’s reach in public discourse the ongoing problem of anthropocentric, modernist ontologies (Kohn 2015; see also Castree 2010).

Other secondary data were considered for the data analysis. Briefly, these included archaeological studies and publications discussing tangible heritage in coastal South Africa (Deacon 2010; Chirikure 2013) historical and research studies on Khoisan and Nguni beliefs and ritual practices (see Boswell and Thornton 2021) the sociocultural and ecological aspects of the sites where fieldwork was conducted (Muhl and Sowman 2020), a multi-use (municipal, tourism, business) plan for the research sites (Western Cape Government 2021), legislation and international Conventions regarding heritage and indigenous knowledge management and a recently produced National Coastal and Marine Spatial Biodiversity Plan (2022). The reason for engaging these literatures was to ascertain the concept of culture in these studies and how they might or might not advance narratives and discourses of inclusion.

The interviews conducted were guided by ethical principles advocated by the university to which the authors are affiliated. The principles include adherence to ethical practices noted in the Belmont Report regarding research engagement with human participants. Each interview conducted was preceded by an introduction of the research topic by the researcher, the formal request for consent to the research process, the signing of a written consent form and the offering of the contact details of the university ethics committee Chair, should the participant have a concern about the conduct of the interview, or should they feel that the interview process contradicted ethical practice.

Results

Primary findings

The primary findings note a prevailing concept of culture and its salience to existing ES frameworks. It is found that (1) there is public circulation of a primordial concept of culture which supports the view that ES frameworks can consist of disaggregated ‘services’ for complex dynamic social-ecological systems (2) indigenous and local peoples’ narratives reveal transmaterial, post-human relations between humans and the sea which challenge the primordial and anthropocentric view of culture, this view was ubiquitous (i.e. more than 80%) across racial and ethnic groups in SA – including leisure users of the sea, as well as those directly dependent on the ocean for subsistence (3) there are other forms of ‘worlding’ (Pina-Cabral 2014) apparent in social-ecological ‘systems’ which challenge the primordial concept of culture and the anthropocentric view of such systems and (4) that humans have a continually dynamic experience of the sea which indicates their continuously produced personhoods in South Africa (Boswell 2022).

The primary data also show that a possessive concept of culture is articulated in the SA public domain, culture appears as if it is distinctly attached to and owned by primordial groups. Interviewees spoke about their social and cultural connection with the ocean and coast, as well as the cultural value of nature as an asset. Daniella, a fish-scaler from Cape Town, for example, said ‘I cannot live without the sea, it is my life’ and Sandra, a then unemployed graduate living in Paternoster, who described the psychosocial effects of being with the ocean, said that ‘the sea lifts me up, it carries me and washes my burdens away’. Another interviewee in the Cape Town city center related the link between marine biodiversity, culture and ritual practice. She said, ‘ … the ocean is the big part of the culture as well. We actually have a big. So it’s basically like our Christmas, which is Eid. That’s our celebration every single year after a long period of fast, and we celebrate one of the main dishes, especially in our culture, called the crayfish Curry. So that’s, like, everybody knows that on Eid. The main dish that must be on the table is crayfish curry’. Those interviewed also said that they had ‘used’ the sea and coast for cultural purposes. Of those interviewed, more than half (i.e. 50%) indicated that they had enacted one or more rituals to engage with the ancestors or with the ‘spirit’ of the sea for cultural purposes. A traditional healer in Tsitsikamma, Eastern Cape Province said that, ‘the sea is medicine’ that local isiXhosa-speaking peoples travelled to the sea ‘to collect seawater for rituals that connect them with the ancestors’. Another added in a description of the existence of spiritual worlds in water, in the Eastern Cape in July 2022, that he had witnessed his aunt ‘going under the water in the river’ and that ‘she only came out three weeks later’. More than 80% of those interviewed indicated the belief that because the ocean (and associated water ways) are culturally valuable, the cultural value of the ocean should be protected and more visibly included in ocean management processes. In Kalk Bay, Western Cape Province, an interviewee emphasized the importance of the ritual life of endogenous peoples with the sea. She said, ‘there is a physics to water’ that impacts human bodies and structures human relations, rendering both more whole, peaceful and integrated. One woman from the Western Cape said, ‘I meditate [by the ocean]. It clears my mind and makes me calm’. The sea is also the resting place and place of cultural meaning for endogenous peoples. One man in Cape Town said, ‘The sea means everything to me. My mom’s ashes is right there. My late son’s ashes is right here. I come here at least four times a week’. More than half of those interviewed also told the team that while they hold different views about how the sea is culturally valuable, they felt that South Africans are sufficiently unified in the view that government should include culture in its ocean strategy and ocean management practice.

The primary data, however, also revealed overlapping of criteria and the interdependencies of metrics in descriptions of human relations with the sea. Thus, interviewees did not merely express the view that they are ocean stewards, they also narrated their entanglements and embedding in social-ecological worlds that are not of their making, speaking of health and wellbeing in culture, as well as the role of particular food, materials and tastes in ritual practices. In Port Alfred, Eastern Cape Province, four Khoisan chiefs related the foods they used to eat when their families had ready access to the sea. They said, ‘back then we had shellfish of all kinds and now, it is just rice’. Interviewees articulated the presence of agency in nature, especially the sea. When asked if they thought the sea is male or female, many indicated that the sea is female because its ‘moods are unpredictable’.

The interviews offered several stories of the vulnerability and subordinacy of humans vis-à-vis nature. One story relates how SA nationals and immigrants use umuthi (magic-potent substances, usually animal body parts) on board fishing vessels to secure employment and increase their catch (Boswell 2022). The use of umuthi, however, required engagement with worlds beyond those publicly accepted by modern subject citizens. For example, in Algoa Bay, Eastern Cape Province, one man related, ‘ … I’ve seen guys using this stuff and it works against them on the water. They got like naked on the boat and just jump into the ocean’, and ‘He’s like getting insane. Yeah. And seeing his own things. That’s why it’s not, it’s not a pleasure working with the guys that’s using them … Most of the time that they talk about the snake. I don’t know what kind of snake it is. But they also using stuff you know, out of the sea … Seals. Now that’s what they’re using. They cut the ears and the stuff of the seals. They cut it off and they use the tooth to make umuthi’.

It was also related that the ocean is a living organism with its own intentions and that magicking on board to communicate with this organism could lead to insanity because mortals cannot apprehend the substance and reach of oceanic power or resist the ocean’s calls to submission. The data also show that ship captains believed in these transmaterial relations and possibilities for exchange because they confined their crew below deck every night to ensure that they are not lured by the power and supplications of the sea. The story confirms what Vivieros de Castro (1998), Descola (2014) and de Sousa Santos (2014) find, which is that there are alternatively located worlds and logics which influence human cultural cognition and behaviour and that colonisation has affected the perception of these worlds and disrupted the emergence of these logics in the public domain.

Secondly, the data shows that human relations with the sea are profoundly embodied and subjective. This suggests that culture itself, dynamic and manifest in different locales, is an embodied, palpable process. Because of the political impacts of apartheid, human relations with the sea and coast are racially and class inscribed. Culture is cast as a largely sociological phenomenon. But in interviews, interviewees talked about pleasurable and unpleasurable embodied human relations and rituals with the sea. Interviews with those classified as White in SA indicate reference to the buoyancy of the sea (see above the reference to the physics and psychosocial aspects of water) and the role of its coldness and saltiness in healing bodies. Interviews with those defined as Black in SA include laments about the necessity of embodied cultural relations with polluted water. At the Swartkops River and estuary for example, the team observed a site of significant pollution in Algoa Bay in 2022. The water was reported to cause rashes, diarrhoea and other ills. Even so, it is still used for ritual purposes. This reveals that pleasurable or not, human relations with water are an embodied process. The existing ES approach does not accommodate such diversities, nor does it consider the explicit role of embodied relations with nature. Finally, the data also show that processually it may be challenging to integrate the culture metric into the ES approach. The latter often requires summarising of local cultural valuation of the ocean and coast so that ‘cultural provisioning’ in the ES analysis can be ‘included’. Cultural maps are required to confirm where cultural use of coastline exists. The primary data, however, shows that cultural groups are not homogeneous, cultural valuations vary and are situational, people migrate and are seasonally mobile (and therefore cannot be continually associated with a location in a cultural map), politics defines which cultural valuations will be prioritized and that cultural valuation is influenced by class, gender, immigration status, race or other social dynamics. And, as the final example demonstrates, the transmaterial and other worldly relations with the sea and coast shows that culture arises out of relations with other equally intentional natural and immaterial things and yet the emphasis in ES is that humanity should be prioritized in mapping culture and that humans, who are ocean ‘stewards’ should determine which services social-ecological systems provide. The data also challenge the notion of national borders and the existence of coterminous cultural wholes within nations. The interviewees in the study describe the ocean as a living organism and entity that is a global spiritual container and other worldly realm from which a diversity of socio-spiritual relations is possible.

Herewith the final example. The team learned that Xhosa healer-diviners are told through dreams and hallucinations where to go along the coast to meet with and commune with the ancestral spirits. Those interviewed relayed how the oceans do not only contain the ancestors of Africans but that they contain all the ancestors of the world’s people, since the waters of the ocean connect all human beings and ultimately contain all the remnants of all those who have died. In Xhosa peoples’ cosmology at least, the ocean is a mediator of diverse conscious forms, both living and that which constitutes the whole of the watery ocean realm. These sentient forms are ancestral and living beings, marine biodiversity and sea and ocean floor matter itself. Waterways connected to the sea (rivers, estuaries, streams and waterfalls) share, to varying degrees, in the ocean’s agential capacities. Rivers and streams produce ripples or unusual ‘behaviour’ of running, flooding or undulating water. Interviewees who would be described as White under apartheid referred to these undulations and buoyancies as the ‘physics of water’. Interviewees (mainly Xhosa in the Eastern Cape Province of SA) referred to the spiritual and communicative possibilities of such water – in fact, those Xhosa peoples interviewed on the subject, continuously referred to such active water, as living water.

In sum, the primary research revealed a diversity of cultural relations with the sea, as well as thoughts on the agential capabilities of the ocean and associated waters. Documents appraised during the analysis of the primary data, revealed that these cultural complexities are hardly acknowledged by the SA government. Government still relies on standard ES approaches, where ‘culture’ is a circumscribable, territorialized, deployable metric.

Secondary data findings

The secondary data was selected for analysis based on – contribution to mainline concepts of culture in SA, information regarding theories of post-human and transmaterial relations with nature, the role of discourse in colonisation and the problem of enduring coloniality (the persistent state of inequity after colonialism) in previously colonised societies. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse these literatures and to assess their suitability in supporting analysis of the primary data. As indicated in the methods section of this article, CDA enables scrutiny of written text for ideological assumptions and epistemological beliefs (Wall et al. 2015). In SA, the apartheid regime advanced a view of culture as primordial and anthropocentric. This view, taken up in national discourse on ocean management, is apparent in the government’s Operation Phakisa strategy document and has percolated to ES approaches, which seems to accept culture as a circumscribable human possession, ‘the full range of learned ideas and behaviour patterns that are acquired, shared, and modified by people’ (McNeeley and Lazrus 2014, p. 506). Revisionist accounts of culture and identity in SA critique the primordial view of culture, revealing how the apartheid regime entrenched a pluralist, segregated view of SA society (Durrheim and Dixon 2000). CDA of writings on indigenous and specifically First Nations peoples in SA reveal the ideological placement and public subordination of First Nations peoples (Boswell and Thornton 2021). These views challenge analyses of SA as a highly dynamic society with ever-evolving cultural forms and practices (Adhikari 2008; Morrell et al. 2012). The literature also shows that the cultural impacts of immigration to SA from elsewhere in Africa went largely unanalysed, effectively denying the influence of African cultural values in SA society (Landau and Freemantle 2010; Owen 2011).

Furthering the CDA, consideration was also given to the SA Constitution and UN Conventions on culture and rights of cultural minorities. Applying CDA, it was found that many of these documents emphasise a pluralistic idea of culture to identify and specifically protect the human rights of vulnerable groups. The SA Constitution protects the right to culture and cultural diversity and in so doing emphasises the separation (rather than the creolization) of cultural interests and values. Following through on promises made, the SA government is party to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Populations (UNDRIP) and seeks to achieve the protection of indigenes and indigenous cultures via the Council for Traditional Leaders (CONTRALESA). The SA government also seeks to achieve indigenous human rights protection via Indigenous Knowledge Act (2019). Brief assessment of UNDRIP, CONTRALESA and SA legislation pertaining to environmental management (the National Environment Management Act (NEMA) act 107 of 1998) reveals similarly pluralistic ideas of culture; ‘communities’ are to be included in environmental management as part of a larger process of recognising cultural rights. Communities are imagined to be homogeneous, agreeable and equal.

Finally, even secondary data concerning socio-demography tended to emphasise cultural distinction and difference rather than dynamism in SA (see the Statistics SA 2020 document on Algoa Bay, Eastern Cape Province). Algoa Bay is described in ethnic and linguistic terms, creating the impression of contiguity between language and culture (Ibid). As the lead agent for aquaculture management and development, the SA Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (DFFE) follows Operation Phakisa’s framing of culture and cultural inclusion. It is therefore not unexpected that existing ES approaches will do the same, for they are specialists within these domains (i.e. DFFE) that have contributed to and formulated ES approaches. To be fair, there is effort now to produce more dynamic models considerate of the kinds of diversity noted in this article but as argued, more may need to be done.

Decolonial reflections on epistemology reveal the persistence of colonial and modernist agendas. The authors of these literatures call for a delinking of culture from mainstream discourse (see Mignolo 2007) and re-placement of vulnerable ontologies and knowledge forms (Kohn 2015). Regarding the argument on the inclusion of the culture metric in ocean management, such literatures compel a public reframing of the culture concept, careful analyses of the results of historical conceptual frames and analysis of the implications of persistent conceptualisations of culture for vulnerable groups in ocean management. In the following and final section of the article, I therefore argue that it is important for scholars, policymakers and practitioners in ocean management to shift from uncritical ES frames and approaches. The neoliberal logic apparent in uncritical ES frames has the potential to erase and displace vulnerable ontologies and knowledge forms. Such erasures exacerbate inequality and the oppression of vulnerable groups.

Resituating culture in ocean management

An uncritical ES as presented thus far requires careful assessment. At best, it can be an approach that, after serious critical review, can overcome the utilitarian, neoliberal logic that appears to have given rise to it. What I see thus far is that the present (even dynamic) ES frame is overly reliant on a prevailing and primordial conceptualisation of culture. Its proponents may be attracted to the modernist, teleological ES promise of balanced dynamic systems and predictable outcomes, or they may be unaware of the ontological modernist, potentially exclusionary philosophy of sustainability which has produced the ES framework now in use. There is also a huge risk of anthropocentrism, where the environment is perceived and analysed as a mere provider of services to humans and to a specific social category of humans, those able to leverage those identified services; those in SA not prohibited from accessing the coast because of their race, for example. In sum, human-nature symbioses and dialogics may be overlooked and the agential capabilities, or even sentience of other species and materials in the social-ecological dynamic may be disregarded, as well as intrinsic (read culturally diverse) and extrinsic values of nature.

In SA, ocean governance is still a largely modernist project requiring measurable ocean ‘metrics’ and services (c.f. Operation Phakisa 2019). The approach forms part of an evidence-based system (Findlay 2022), in which social-ecological metrics are to be identified and accounted for. It is presumed that all the evidence is present and in the present realm … However, culture is difficult to circumscribe, cultural practice (and ultimately culture) is situated across realities and spatial-temporal dimensions, it is difficult to integrate into a system that may not resonate with local realities and priorities. Culture is mobile, creolized, crosses imperceptible dimensions and is changeable. Cultural practice can lead to knowledge forms and logics beyond those currently understood or accepted in Western society.

The goal of Ocean Account Framework (OAF), by contrast, is to circumscribe the value of each social-ecological metric on the understanding that this will lead to a more a democratic ocean accounting. The primary data shared in this article show that there are many cultures, many cultural values and that all cultural practices are part of dynamic social systems. Culture itself can be a frame, generating values and epistemologies. This last point leads to a consideration of the discourse of cultural inclusion for democracy. Rereading the decolonial literatures in which there is discourse analysis of ‘inclusion’, it is noted that in coloniality, radical perspectives (Vivieros de Castro 1998) are neutralised and subsumed in larger teleological processes that risks entrenching exclusion and marginalisation.

Given the findings, the culture ‘metric’ presents unique challenges and compels new perspectives for discussions of both ocean accounting and sustainability. At the very least, existing ocean accounting frameworks should be reviewed to more fully consider the dynamic, mobile and intrinsic definitions and approaches to culture.

The view of human social-ecological systems as complex adaptive systems (Levin et al. 2012) should encourage a view of culture as an equally complex adaptive system. At the very least this entails acknowledging the equally complex and socially mediated metrics such as health, recreational and leisure uses of the ocean. More complexly and because cultural expressions and lived experiences are dynamic, it is important to also be open to the idea that culture exists across time and space. If one does so, however, it becomes difficult to ascertain which version of cultural expression is significant enough for inclusion in ES analysis. A revised ES approach, in my view, should at the very least include greater attention to the elements of transmateriality, temporality, the political history of culture and the dynamism and creolization of culture as noted above.

Conclusion: the ES turn?

My concluding thoughts are that (1) at the very least, a critical reassessment of ‘systemic’ frames such as the ES approach is required, not only for the democratisation of environmental management in SA but also for an understanding of the reach of modernist ideologies and their potentially imperious effects. Not only does the existing ES approach risk encouraging utilitarian and inflexible views on deeply complex processes and ideas (Córdoba et al. 2020, Schnegg et al. 2014, p. 1), it risks entrenching modes of thinking that are communicable to other powerful domains of ocean management; (2) SA may need the kind of radical perspectivism advocated by scholars such as Vivieros de Castro to bring about social-ecological philosophies that adequately respond to the cultural diversity to be found in the country. This may require the equivalent of a ‘Critical Turn’ in ES scholarship, a serious questioning of the very foundation and purpose of the approach. The primary data discussed in this article clearly indicate the diversity of culture, its diverse locations, dynamism and the potential subordinacy or at least, equivalency of humans in human-ocean relations. The data also indicate agential natural realms that are presently uncharted by many humans. What really, are the form and substance of the ocean’s agency and how does this shape human existence and cultural production? By contrast, evidence of the inflexibility of current ES approaches is apparent in notes regarding difficulties in finding the right methodology to assign a market value to ostensibly non-market entity. From this perspective, a conclusion reached by some, is that culture has no-use value, a conclusion that some authors find deeply perplexing (Small et al. 2017).

If humanity is going to effectively engage anthropogenic effects on the oceans and coasts, there is a need, at least, to revisit the categorisation of metrics for ocean management or, to adopt a more radical stance that delinks culture from the notion of metrics, since culture appears to be a foundation of its own, engendering diverse interdependencies and logics. Lastly and as found in South Africa, people have not yet been given the opportunity to articulate their other values of the ocean, this is because they were largely precluded from doing so under apartheid. The result is that prevailing, mainstream often curated notions of culture are being ‘chosen’ for ocean accounting and in key documents, such as the strategy document of Operation Phakisa, where there is a marked absence of a richer engagement with SA’s indigenous world views. Careful research and critical discourse analysis are needed to elucidate not only the processes of culture production but also the long-term implications of poorly formulated concepts. The current framing of the culture ‘metric’ hardly makes space for the rich and politically dynamic epistemologies of South Africa’s human-ocean relations.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the editors and reviewers for comprehensive and valuable feedback on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Department of Science and Innovation, South Africa [UID 129962 and UID 125455]; Global Challenges Research Fund [NE/S008950/1].

Notes

1. Primordialism entails view of culture and ethnicity as fixed at birth and unique to humans, while a transmaterial perspective encourages a view of human existence (including culture), as a process in which other species and non-living entities engage with and impact on human life. Transtemporality refers to the possibility of culture existing across different time frames.

2. The research assistants who aided in the collection of data presented in this paper are from Nelson Mandela University. Their names are: Jessica Leigh Thornton, Zanele Hartmann, Sharon Gabie, Athabile Xuba and Jenna-Lee Goeda.