Perspectives for Ocean Justice: Imagining Fishing Communities as Ocean Literacy
摘要
This chapter explores the assumptions underlying Challenge 10 “Restore Society’s Relationship with the Ocean” (formerly Change Humanity's Relationship with the Ocean) of UNESCO’s Ocean Decade and those underlying the related policies, education and actions from which this challenge originated, and the impact of these uncontested ideas. It calls for acknowledging and interrogating the relative power advantage that may be latent in our points of view and positions in society. It begins by discussing the recommendations of the Vision 2030 White Paper on Challenge 10 to show how it aims to recognize more existing diversity via the concept of “Etuaptmumk” (two-eyed seeing) and by changing the wording of the challenge from “change humanity’s” to “restore society’s” relationship with the Ocean. By deconstructing the drivers of the Paper, it shows how power imbalances inherent in the Ocean Decade remain intact thereby maintaining marginalization of other ways of knowing. The chapter reviews the underlying images of Ocean science and UNESCO videos to uncover dubious stereotypes and ideas about history and people and the impact this has on education. In moving from the top-down direction of the Ocean Decade, the chapter takes a bottom-up view and offers a list of sources of literacies directly from those who continue to live Ocean/human epistemologies and ontologies. The chapter includes excerpts from a photo-narrative book based in the Azores Islands, Portugal, showcasing alternative expressions of Ocean–human relationships.