Abstract
Recent oceans sustainability, coastal community development, and ocean governance policy discourse among academics and practitioners increasingly invokes “equity” and “ocean equity.” But, to what end? While this new focus may be a positive development for these fields, this article argues that the conceptualization of equitable approaches to oceanic production and consumption remains rooted in market-liberal environmentalist as well as unproblematized global developmentalist logics, revealing tensions about whom equity notions may serve in practice. Via theoretical and conceptual development drawn from the emerging literature on this topic, the article draws attention to how critical environmental justice scholarship provides a necessary intervention for ocean equity. If the goal is to achieve equitable ocean outcomes, it is necessary to reckon with and undermine logics that continue to structure social inequality, dominate labor, and create the present ocean governance situation as ruled by global development and bourgeois environmentalist organizations. Furthermore, scholars, activists, practitioners, and anyone else working toward equity in, on, and around oceans should fight against any banalization of the term ocean equity, so that it can maintain its underlying socially progressive, and hopefully emancipatory, potential.
INTRODUCTION
Policy scholar Oscar Espinoza remarked that “notions of ‘equity’ and ‘equality’ have run through many debates on social and public policy, and yet in many contexts there seems to be no very clear idea of just what ‘equality’ and ‘equity’ mean” (344). 1 Since then, strides have been made to clarify the terms; yet new fields have taken up the concepts, proliferating, often (re)blurring, them, resulting in “many notions of equity” (246). 2
Equity is invoked as a counterpoint to equality. “Equality” connotes, if not anticipates, a process of fairness. Yet, as social and environmental justice (EJ) scholars argue, processes built on principles of equality presume an already existing society where it is a predominant principle—“in practice, the ‘equality for all’ that such uniform frameworks pre-suppose works to deny or ignore existing social hierarchies” (146). 3 In stronger terms, Grace Wong and colleagues, through observation of how social forestry programs in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia limit the local agency, imagination, and resource access while framing institutionalized neoliberalism as a “win” for local communities, show equity is increasingly reduced “to simplistic notions of fair access to markets with restrictive rights and access, and emphasis on economic entrepreneurship and production” (255). 4 Contrastingly, foundational notions of equity demand attention be paid to how social inequalities are (re)produced. 5
Equity is increasingly foregrounded in oceans. For instance, the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy proposes: “A sustainable ocean economy puts people at its center, works for everyone, enables human rights, facilitates the equitable distribution of ocean wealth and ensures equality of opportunity for all.” 6 When equality and equity are now meeting an ever more profound state of conceptual and practical elision, maritime governance is asked to address the question of social equity, hopefully materializing “the ocean we want,” as the United Nations 7 puts it, after decades of challenges in the sector regarding ecological and human impacts (e.g., wild-capture fisheries, aquaculture). 8 Given the undefined nature and common-sense quality of “ocean equity,” and wide-ranging set of issues it seems to encompass, the concept has become slippery beyond its policy utility. 9
Perhaps because of this ambiguity, attachment to traditional conservationist and market logics remain problematically embedded in approaches to ocean equity. The result, we argue, is that supposedly equitable approaches to governance, development, and/or sustainability fail to challenge fundamentally inequitable processes of maritime production and consumption affecting ocean-linked communities. If the goal is to achieve equitable outcomes in maritime spaces, it is necessary to name, reckon with, and undermine fundamental underlying logics structuring inequality through ocean governance, conservation, and development organizations. In exposing these tensions, this article suggests a need to move toward a critical environmental justice understanding of and approach to “ocean equity.”
WHAT (AND WHY) IS “OCEAN EQUITY?”
Recent mobilizations suggest that activists will continue to play key roles in struggles for climate justice and ocean governance, increasingly connecting social and environmental concerns. Simultaneously, there has been a push by scholars and practitioners to tackle ocean health problems, a framing that links climate change, ocean despoliation, and rampant social inequality at sea. 10 There is both interest and potential for conversations connecting oceans to social equity and justice when one considers the vastness of the so-called “blue economy,” conceptually as well as materially, and of the human exploitation undergirding it. 11 There are already reasons to believe the aegis of sustainable ocean economies simply mask the underlying causes of systematic human exploitation and nature appropriation that remains foundational to contemporary maritime capitalism, 12 despite a number of “pluralistic” exchanges of knowledge on ocean management. 13 There is thus a continuity with “new” terminologies of “ocean sustainability” and those of long-institutionalized ones. In this sense, cognate sustainability grammar seems to always be “mythical.” 14 Put differently, even as new terms emerge, there is reason to question the degree to which these new concepts represent a change in thinking or approach.
In the context of ocean sustainability, 15 “ocean equity” has been proposed as a certain rational, scientifically oriented, approach to ocean governance. 16 If we understand ocean equity as an extension or cognate of sustainability, 17 then it is grounded in an anthropocentric understanding of nature: natural resources exist for human extractive purposes, and conservation means the maximal use of resources through scientific management. 18 Such a logic, for example, is prevalent in a wide array of promotional literature for global, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Conservation International, whose motto is: “Fighting to protect nature for people,” and less directly with, for example, the Ocean Conservancy: “to protect the ocean from today’s greatest global challenges.” Ocean equity has also been discussed in pedagogical terms as new knowledge and actions contributing to approaches to achieve both societal and environmental outcomes for environmental sustainability. 19 Of course, there is no inherent reason for terms such as “ocean equity” or “sustainability” to be deployed in ways that fail to match “good” intentions. However, the notion of sustainability, having a more extensive intellectual history than ocean equity is an instructive example in this regard. For example, environmental historian Donald Worster problematized sustainability thus:
“In the absence of any clear idea of what a healthy nature is, or how threats to that collective biological whole might impinge upon us, we will end up relying on utilitarian, economic, and anthropocentric definitions of sustainability…Sustainability is, by and large, an economic concept on which economics are clear and ecologists are muddled. If you find that outcome unacceptable, as I do, then you must change the elementary terms of the discussion (1993: 142).” 20
If Worster is right, it is an important and unfinished project across multiple disciplines to work to find a lexical means and set of practices that can evoke possibilities and establish clear criticisms that confront this discursive looseness. Such a critique is important for undermining the various forms of “green washing” that are common to ocean and other environmental sectors, as well as forms of cooptation, which pervert, upend, and redirect truly sustainable, equitable, and socially just initiatives. 21 Yet, the issue is that if we take the connections between widely circulated notions such as equity and sustainability seriously in the contexts in which they often appear, and in relation to existing evidence of how such notions are deployed (which are discussed at specific junctures as this article proceeds), it remains unclear how “ocean equity,” at present and in practice, marks a departure from the cultural hegemony of capitalism and the orthodox scientific management of Nature. 22 Surely, this need not be necessarily so, but a sober diagnosis and critique of the state of play is necessary to recover the potential of ocean equity.
Simultaneously, scholars and organizations propose ocean equity assumes an instrumental function: to ensure efforts (funded programs, outreach, etc.) respect local cultures and promote outcomes for everyday people through achieving conservation objectives. For example, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation declared 2021 “the year of Ocean Equity.” While unclear what tangible impact this had for combatting systemic ocean injustice, the foundation’s communications officer discussed her experience upon attendance at the 2022 United Nations’ Our Oceans conference in Lisbon, Portugal:
“On June 15th, I sat on a plane from California to Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport. I shifted in my seat to gaze over the Atlantic Ocean from above, reflecting on its beauty and power. I knew that this conference would be a huge opportunity for the ocean community to move forward on collective action. I also knew that it was more than just action we needed – we are desperately in need of equity. Last year, we dubbed 2021 ‘the Year of Ocean Equity.’ We know Black, Indigenous and People of Color, low-income communities, and other marginalized groups bear the brunt of inequities across the board, including when it comes to ocean protection.” 23
Such commentaries emerge simultaneously with movements in the ocean governance literature and ocean equity scholarship. Alexander and colleagues assert: “equity is understood differently again by a range of marginalized groups experiencing intersecting forms of inequity” (298), and further arguing that questions of fairness, justice, and equity “have long been contested because the concepts are so situated in context, power relations, subjectivity, culture, and personal experience. This renders a universal definition of equity impossible” (298). 24 Such treatment relativizes various aspects of marginalization by ignoring the uneven distribution of social and environmental privileges and harms that follow from systems of racism, sexism, classism, etc. However, other scholars have more carefully promoted equity cognates such as “blue justice” and “marine justice,” as a kind of nascent critique of marine political economy to problematize the predominant logic—especially within conservation circles—of status-quo economic growth paradigms, while simultaneously highlighting the need to re-center concerns about human rights, livelihoods, and coastal communities. 25
While such concepts and discussions bring the concerns of ocean equity more into line with decades of environmental justice activism and research, the policy pathways that have emerged around ocean equity seem the most well-trodden—promoting a procedural equity international narrative, pointing to the promotion of marginalized representation. This is important, but one is hard-pressed to establish how specific this is to the ocean sector. What is strikingly unique is how marine scholars are often poised to capitalize on a monopolization of niche knowledge that is also at once alien to the scholastic field. 26 As Tafon clarifies, marine scholars’ claims to this effect are a cultural affectation more than a scientific principle. 27 As such, correctives should point the way to more critical, post-positivist research that better centers social power and domination at sea along dimensions of class, race, gender, and more. These issues are not new. Sociologists and anthropologists have long discussed the connections between ecological governance and expert hegemony in policymaking since the turn of the 21st century, as global policies on sustainability, conceptions of equity, and more have been finetuned by international actors like the World Bank. 28
Other scholarship suggests that a pathway toward social equity in ocean governance could lie in identifying distributional inequalities, thus building more directly from environmental justice antecedents. Such discussions simultaneously argue for procedural equity by “capacity building” (borrowed from capabilities research in development studies 29 ), education and funding, and mainstreaming the “value of equity” in policymaking. 30 Here, oceans scholarship and discourse fails to account for progress made in broader fields, as critiques of “social capital building,” “capacity building,” and “capabilities” have long existed (e.g., sociology of development). 31
The aforementioned approaches remain inadequate. The question of pursuing procedural or distributional equity shows how social equity in maritime conservation and/or sustainability initiatives is based on an ethical position: equity means obtaining ‘social license’ to operate from the affected coastal communities, while trusting ‘environmental sustainability’ will eventually deliver desired economic and ‘social sustainability’ through policy instruments such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is ironic, as the SDGs have long been critiqued as resulting from inequitable participatory mechanisms and politicization. 32 If we are to achieve “the ocean we want” through practices of social equity, 33 it must be acknowledged that ocean governance practices have emerged from historical, social processes, not from the mind of a certain intelligentsia, philanthropic or otherwise.
Engagement with the environmental justice literature provides a useful corrective. What is needed is not so much “ocean governance transformations”—“profound changes in the structures, processes, rules and norms of ocean governance that produce radical reconfigurations in social, political, economic, and or/ecological aspects of the ocean” 34 —but foundational social transformation reckoning with the colonial, racist, classist, and patriarchal histories of maritime capitalism. In what follows, we call attention to the potential of adopting a critical environmental justice framework in pursuit of a meaningful ocean equity concept.
CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR OCEAN EQUITY
There has been tremendous interest in social, racial, and environmental justice from scholars, activists, and the public. 35 While these movements are, of course, not new, the recent attention paid to Black Lives Matter, the climate movement, the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock, and other events have changed societal consciousness about inequality in the United States (and around the world). 36 As Murphy notes, these justice movements offer a framework that especially exposes racialized and classed patterns of inequitable distributions of social, political, economic, and environmental resources that is profoundly anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist. 37 If equity is to be the center of “ocean governance,” environmental justice offers a productive, essential lens for understanding the social relations through which social disparities are (re)produced. This is part of the intellectual and political project David Pellow articulated with his concept of critical environmental justice, an anti-hegemonic program highly critical of the very paradigm that ocean equity often represents in practice through its “market-based strategies,” 38 pre-competitive agreements, public-private partnerships, 39 and philanthropic financial models of development. 40 Fisheries research, for example, seems to presuppose that the answer to achieving equity goals will be through the market, with these market based strategies framed as a more effective mechanism than traditional government policies. What has followed is a proliferation of “solutions” such as Marine Stewardship Council (MCS) sustainability certifications, fishery improvement projects (including the controversial social/human resource policy), and voluntary schemes/corporate social responsibility. 41 Such approaches are, of course, critiqued for creating issues of access and favoring larger, industrial fisheries; it is the big producers, after all, that are able to pay for the certification, even if their activities do not differ much from those who cannot achieve certification. 42
More generally, these market instruments are critiqued for failing to achieve their purported objectives, creating new social-ecological relations without challenging broader systems of oppression and privilege, and failing to achieve greater equity. 43 A critical perspective, on the other hand, fights as much for people’s relation to Nature as against capitalist ideology and production. This comes in sharp contrast to noncritical approaches to inequality; “despite a strong condemnation of the scourges of racism, class domination, and the abuse of state power and corporate power in the literature, [noncritical] EJ studies generally offer prescriptions for change that rely on dominant institutions and social systems serving as partners and collaborators in forging a just and sustainable future” (151). 44
This builds off critical race scholars’ work, recognizing inequalities as outcomes of systems of oppression and privilege, 45 which ocean governance and ocean equity discourse largely fails to engage. Critical Race and EJ scholars have elaborated how environmental racism is to the material, social, economic, political, and psychic benefit of the dominant racial group, meaning that there is little incentive to addressing persistent racial inequalities unless it further benefits those in the dominant group position. 46 Thus, under the name “critical environmental justice studies,” scholars have argued that to achieve environmental justice, we must consider that our relationship to the state and to capital entrenches inequalities, perhaps even when intentions run counter to this. Pellow implores us to move forward, not from “theories of change” (à la NGOs), but with vision rooted in socio-material conditions:
“the vision of change articulated by EJ Studies scholars and most EJ activists generally looks to the state and capital to accommodate demands via legislation, institutional reforms, and other policy concessions. The concern here is that such an approach leaves intact the very power structures that produced environmental injustice in the first place” (224). 47
Viewed in this light, it is unsurprising that maritime injustices persist despite large investments aimed at “solving” issues. The persistence of inequity comes not from lack of knowledge but from a political and economic system that naturalizes and centers corporate stakeholders as “keystone actors” that can deliver sustainable development. 48 Short of dramatically reorganizing the web of social institutions and displacement of the cultural ideologies that have structured current local conditions, inequity should be expected to continue.
As an example, one might consider the response to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and the regulation of distant-water fishing. In both cases, there is a focus on the technical (remote sensing, enforcement, monitoring, control, and surveillance [MCS]), and to meet the demand this creates, Western nations provide African states with support on maritime security. Yet, these policies do little to address the inequitable patterns of economic and ecological exchange driving issues with IUU fishing and distant-water fisheries, and instead lead to more powerful states exploiting the exclusive economic zones of countries such as Ghana and Liberia. 49 The topics of IUU fishing and distant water fisheries thus show a modern colonialism. When IUU issues are governed from a technical point of view, such as Western-assisted maritime security, the ways in which colonization generated these specific dynamics of resource access and “weak” states goes unaddressed and many African nations are resultingly “dependent” on foreign expertise and aid to address problems that were set in motion by powerful firms and state enterprises in colonial/imperial powers. 50
So, against this historical backdrop, what are the best outcomes for an ocean equity strategy, such as an “ocean justice” led by the state, 51 a just energy transition led by industrial actors such as Duke Energy, 52 or the ocean equity of the United Nations 53 —an institution that routinely witnesses policy stagnation on social programs? 54 In this context, is it surprising that successful EJ outcomes are derived from social action prioritizing community wellbeing over economic opportunity? “Blue economy” approaches professing simultaneous positive economic, environmental, and social outcomes have become very popular. But, similar to past approaches to ocean resource management, issues of social and environmental equity are seen as goals that can be achieved through the market. 55 In one example, Christine Knott and colleagues question how state-led “blue economy frameworks” may enable petroleum firms a seat at the table on the basis of a perverted sense of procedural equity on the issue of cooptation in ocean policy issues, contrary to certain policy intentions, and calling into question how credible justice claims within such a framework can actually be. 56 In other contexts, scholars have documented how the fisheries market routinely witnesses racial, gender, and other forms of maritime discrimination, 57 documented by the International Labor Organization. 58 If advancing social equity is a priority, the blue economy will remain problematic because capitalist markets, as racial capitalism scholars point out, exist to produce, maintain, and exploit social hierarchy, not dismantle it. 59 Capitalism is not just an economic system, as it is often treated by the sustainability literature, but also a racial, political project foundational to social inequality along many dimensions. Any market-based solutions cannot be divorced from this legacy and must be understood through its relation to other social forces and social institutions, including but not limited to slavery, government, class politics, social movements, colonialism, and global development. 60 While it is true that capitalism operates on a certain set of principles, such as the ceaseless quest to identify the next extractable, commodifiable resource, 61 these principles are shaped by the social and historical context in which they are enacted.
Clark, for example, shows how growth in the American East Coast fishing industry relied on the exploitation of Black labor. He argues “white supremacy and economic exploitation were mutually constitutive during this long century [mid nineteenth to mid twentieth century], and reproduced one another during periods of slavery, reconstruction, and Jim Crow” (p. 660). 62 It remains true that today’s fishing industry is similarly dependent upon maritime laborers from the Global South. Industrial growth hinges on deeply inequitable relationships of economic and ecological exchange between regions. 63 On a fundamental level, relationships of access by powerful nations to fisheries in other regions is grounded in colonial dynamics substantiated by international law, in which the playing field has never been equal. 64 Despite a seemingly shared understanding that inequalities exist, 65 with “solutions” paying lip service to equity, focus on effective resource management remains a center piece of ocean governance. New policies, in turn, often benefit major firms in the fishing industry, doing little to address precarity, displacement, and/or access for marginalized coastal communities. 66 A critical ocean equity understanding informed by historical environmental justice scholarship must then, in effect, storm the gates of the eco-modern “least-worst option” discourse of ocean governance scholarship. 67
Importantly, inequity is commonly maintained though cultural and/or institutional narratives of “equality”—an issue little discussed in the marine sciences literature. The contrast between equality and equity is typically discussed as the contrast between a position of ahistorical neutrality on the one hand, and the utilitarian value of aggregated benefits on the other. After all, “theorists have observed that people possess an intense need to perceive this as a fair and equitable world, a world where the enormously benefited deserve their fate and the under-benefited deserve theirs,” 68 hence continued participation in the status quo. This issue runs deep. To borrow from sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s discussion of abstract liberalism, invoking narratives of fairness and equality of opportunity act as a supposedly moral argument against affirmative action and other race-conscious policies. Thus, if one were to view “the market” or “the economy” as a place driven by rational choice and self-interest, as a place separate from society where one might succeed in a competitive system based on individual merits, it follows that development scholars would proclaim access to the market as equity. Such logics, of course, ignore the social and historic processes that have and continue to shape one’s market opportunities. 69 Discounting the interwoven formation of race, class, and citizenship within the capitalist system and attempting to secure economic equity without consideration of intersecting systems of oppression and privilege works to preserve a white supremist status quo that is further legitimated by a larger color-blind cultural project intent on dismissing, if not outright removing, narratives about racial equity from public discourse. 70
Indeed, “color-blindness” is built into social organizations and institutions to preserve racial hierarchy. 71 For example, Grant Blume discusses how inequity is embedded not just within institutions and policies, but even academic theories of institutions and norms, unpacking the problematic nature of supposed “administrative neutrality” in government offices: “The racialized reality of the United States is misaligned with public administration’s theoretical assumption that business-as-usual is one of administrative neutrality.” 72 Quite rightly, Blume’s work expands the theoretical and practical horizon of debate.
The administrative reproduction of racial hierarchy is observable in the world of ocean governance. Any observer of marine policy in the past 20 years will notice that marine research, policy, and capacity building efforts adhere closely to the logic of global development seen since the 1970s: the Global North’s affluent countries and private foundations provide money to “improve” the subaltern condition. 73 However, the problem is that contemporary evidence routinely indicates the nefarious expression this takes, ultimately not toward self-determination. As Fourcade has shown historically: “the lavish forms of patronage practiced by Medieval families, and the ethical valorization of charity in religious ethics are all examples of the imperative to give…think of present-day philanthropy as a modern remnant of these “noble expenses,” which both bind society across class boundaries and reaffirm the social order” (210). 74 Such gifts (charity, development aid, mission trips, etc.) have little to do with altruism, and instead reinforce power relations, inequity, and dispossession. 75 Ocean philanthropy for research/development often constitutes a reconfiguration, not a departure from, more traditional charity efforts. Such funders have repositioned themselves as advancing knowledge and expertise, and this allows them to engage in processes of environmental governance, 76 not unlike the World Bank and global governance institutions. 77
Such tensions in the actual workings of marine policy around conceptions and practices of equity are relevant to our concern about calls for ocean equity. Mainstream ocean equity discourses often offer a neutral or apolitical perspective that is ontologically flat, rather than truly reckoning with difference and the unevenness of the social, whether along dimensions of race, class, gender, or otherwise, which must be seen as intersectional and contextual. This means that we must recognize the uneven playing field that has resulted from historical and continuing systems of privilege and oppression in maritime spaces. 78
THE PATH FORWARD
If equity is to be at the center of ocean governance, coastal community development, and sustainability efforts, organizations must work to understand individuals and their communities in relation to enduring legacies of racism, colonialism, and other systems of power that structure employment opportunities, living conditions, and health. Working toward ocean equity means development and governance organizations must disentangle themselves from existing power structures. This is a difficult task for organizations that have historically relied on their ability to appeal to private and public funding organizations, policymaking bodies, and even industry partnerships that, intentionally or not, actively invested in the maintenance of systems of oppression and privilege. Future research and activism need to identify where this may be happening, to what extent, what is successful, and what processes are simply not working, accepting them for what they are.
Along these lines, what this article has endeavored to show is not only the various “blindnesses” of ocean governance scholarship to rigorous questions of racism, colonialism, gender biases, classism and other forms of social domination under advanced capitalism, but, more generally, why this is taking place. What is particularly striking—and will be a productive area of future critical scholarship— is an investigation into the field of ocean governance science. This would go well beyond the general investigations of ocean institutions and instead strike at the heart of the market, the state, and the academy. As the research for this article has begun to uncover, there is a dearth of significant engagement by ocean governance scholars with the substantive intellectual tradition of environmental justice, despite clear links to be made going back almost three decades at the nexus of environmental and oceanic concerns. For example, Pulido wrote of the dynamics of subaltern engagement and environmentalism presciently:
“The idea that all those involved in oppositional politics can form a counterhegemonic plurality intent on creating radical change is highly doubtful…becoming more aware of the oppression of others, does not guarantee that we will reach any level of political agreement. It is not inevitable that mainstream environmentalism will necessarily be supportive of subaltern struggles, and to presume that it will be entirely ignores the question of positionality. Given that there are a multitude of ways to ‘save' the environment, a desire for environmental quality may not be strong enough to unite, even temporarily, diverse groups. This is unfortunate for both the environment and for subaltern communities. Furthermore, it does not appear that mainstream environmentalism will be moving in that direction. More conservative, market-oriented organization like the Environmental Defense Fund, are emerging as the new environmental leaders” (209). 79
This is instructive for maritime issues. We continue to witness division within environmental sectors claiming ocean equity, such as Fisheries Improvement Projects, Marine Protected Areas, and SDGs. 80 Also, whether it is ocean governance or the terrestrial EJ movement, Pulido implies that market-based strategies are at issue, and more broadly, a cynical engagement with the dispossessed that produce hollow procedural and representational justice.
This article has suggested a reimagining of ocean governance beyond a simplistic version of “thinking socially” to further break from the utilitarian, economic, and anthropocentric definitions of sustainability. 81 Rather than defaulting to resource conservationist frameworks and market-based solutions, or independently developing notions of equity, ocean governance scholars and practitioners must build upon the growing interest in EJ to find innovative ways to support grassroots movements.
As we have attempted to do in this article, conceptual refinement is clearly needed. Let us be clear, we are not condemning the use of notions of ocean equity. In fact, scholars, activists, practitioners, and anyone else fighting in, on, and around oceans should work against any banalization of the term ocean equity, so that it can maintain its underlying socially progressive, and emancipatory, potential. In this way, criticism and reflection are vital. As equity programs have already begun in both the public and private sector and will no doubt continue, vigilance is needed to uphold strong values and ideals, precisely so that they do not fall prey to industry and elite capture in the way terms like sustainability have. Equity needs to stand for not a new discursive force-field of abstract liberal economic logics protecting particular interests, but a wide-ranging program guarding material interests of the lower classes, the marginalized, and the dispossessed.
How might we begin to achieve the necessary conceptual refinement? One way this can develop is by addressing the impact private foundations are having on ocean research. As we have alluded, the penetration of philanthropy into ocean research is profound, yet there is no discernible discussion of achieving intellectual freedom and solidarity that might support more radical scholarship and community action. Therefore, this is a wide-open area of research and social organizing beyond the supposed “black box” of private funders. 82 Some preliminary propositions would include the insistence across ocean researchers on principles of academic freedom in funding applications at the beginning and end of funding negotiations. Discussions should also take place around creating solidarity among ocean researchers to be more involved in, and have their efforts recognized in terms of student and employee unions across campuses that are already fighting for funding, pay, and benefits so that there will be less dependency on philanthropists who do not share commitments to intellectual freedom. For indeed, opening discussions of intellectual freedom is a means to de-provincialize ocean researchers and thus connect them to broader communities of scholars and activists, because intellectual freedom often remains more a promise than reality across many universities, even in non-authoritarian contexts. Truly embracing ocean equity will mean reimagining maritime missions, funding schemes, and a multitude of social relationships by grappling with the unjust historical processes of ocean sustainability by building on critical EJ to combat systems of oppression and privilege.
Footnotes
AUTHOR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No competing financial interests exist.
FUNDING INFORMATION
This work was funded by the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center.