Within Aquatic Life. Beyond the Anthropogenic Maritorium Prospect

Abstract

Enquiries into non-anthropogenic cultural landscapes, such as marine environments, reveal unsuspected dynamics due to the resurgence of ecosophies that are alien to the globalised economy and territorialisation as a basis for appropriation and subsequent indiscriminate exploitation. Disturbed by the wanderings of geo-engineering, several regions of the world have recently touched on key arguments with points in common that could revitalise nonhuman biospheres and, in them, human ones. When considering maritime dynamics, the ocean must be seen as an entity. Following the ever-inspiring historical literatures of Fernand Braudel and expanding on the “mediterraneity” he formulated, we would be testing another concept involving a change in mentality of governmentality: “maritoriums”, a conceptualisation from 1970s Chilean architecture. Based on case studies, we will discuss significant examples in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and Asian oceans and rivers that contribute to the current debate on.

Keywords

• maritorium
• aquatic life
• degradation
• built environment
• historical insight