The sea and International Relations

Abstract

The sea and International Relations offers a collection of interesting contributions and new strategies for the discipline of International Relations (IR) to better engage with the sea and the oceans. This edited volume brings together contributors with varying research interests, from maritime security to the history of empires and from privateering to the mobility and riches of the ocean. Each contributor offers their distinctive perspective on the role of the sea/ocean in our theorizing on world politics. The book takes as its starting-point the assumption that the sea/ocean has so far been under-studied in IR, as the discipline has traditionally been obsessed with territoriality on land. Indeed, it is quite remarkable how mainstream IR, so focused on geographies and control over territories, has largely managed to evade any meaningful engagement with the sea/ocean. This edited volume has integrated a review into the volume itself, which makes independent reviewing more challenging. I am sympathetic to all main points that Xavier Guillaume and Julia Costa López raise in the last chapter, where they offer insights and comments on the book. I especially agree with their assessment that the volume could have tried harder to engage with the literature and ideas of the sea/ocean outside ‘the western thalassodicy’ [maritime powers] (pp. 247–51). While some chapters discuss postcolonial thought, most operate within the western paradigm, despite evident criticism of it. This is particularly apparent when contributors seek to challenge the three ways in which said western tradition has, according to the book, dealt with the sea: ‘(a) … as a space to be tamed, (b) … as a space to be traversed, and (c) … as a space to be controlled’ (pp. 7–8). Each chapter, however, relies predominantly on Anglo-American and European experiences and power struggles at sea, whether contemporary or dating from the past. This way, the book enforces the idea that, beyond this intellectual and historical space, there are limited resources from which to draw when thinking about the sea/ocean. An examination of how the meanings of the ocean—social, political and cultural—vary outside the West would have strengthened the book's critique. While some authors engage with the critical ocean studies literature, as well as with race and gender, a discussion of non-western experiences would have added more nuance to the book.