The Maritime Mystique: Sustainable Development, Capital Mobility, and Nostalgia in the World-Ocean

Steinberg, Philip E.

Abstract

Three images of ocean space are becoming increasingly prevalent in policy and planning circles and popular culture: The image of the ocean as an empty void to be annihilated by hypermobile capital; as a resource-rich but fragile space requiring rational management for sustainable development; and as a source of consumable spectacles. In this paper I locate the emergence of these three apparently contradictory images of the ocean within structural contradictions in the spatiality of capitalism, which, in turn, are precipitating a crisis in marine regulation. To analyze these contradictions, I begin with a historical study of industrial-era marine uses, regulations, and representations. This is followed by an analysis of the present crisis and its associated representational discourses. I conclude with a call for analyses of ocean space that probe beneath marine imagery so as to explore the regulatory crises and social conflicts that underlie marine-policy debates and that reveal the ocean's potential as a site of social transformation.

Citation

Steinberg, P. E. (1999). The Maritime Mystique: Sustainable Development, Capital Mobility, and Nostalgia in the World-Ocean. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 17(4), 403-426. https://doi.org/10.1068/d170403

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 1999
• Deposit Date: Sep 6, 2013
• Journal: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
• Print ISSN: 0263-7758
• Electronic ISSN: 1472-3433
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 403-426
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d170403
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1478621