What is the Sargasso Sea? The problem of fixing space in a fluid ocean

Abstract

The political boundaries used to territorialize ocean spaces are often negotiated as largely social relations, with little attention to material aspects. Material aspects of ocean spaces include physical forces, interacting life, and constant transformation. In this paper, we use Steinberg and Peters' (2015) “wet ontology” and concepts of the hydrosphere, liquidity, dynamism, and emergence to reflect on how the Sargasso Sea was located in geographic space through analysis of scientific data that revealed its complex materiality. Drawing from policy documents, white papers, presentations, and 14 semi-structured interviews with scientists, government officials, and NGO representatives, we then trace how the Sargasso Sea Alliance produced the linear boundaries that define the Sargasso Sea as an Ecologically and Biologically Significant Marine Area and, later, as an area for international collaboration on its conservation. Although the data used to locate the Sargasso Sea demonstrated its mobility and complexity, policymaking processes calling for legible boundaries produced a simplified and fixed Sargasso Sea that obscures its “wet” materiality. This ‘fixed’ Sargasso Sea was created, in part, to test the potential of existing high seas governing bodies in the lead-up to current negotiations for an international legally-binding instrument for high seas governance; this case thus demonstrates how the social relations that construct existing understandings of territory in oceans may continue to dictate policy options, even as new, more dynamic management techniques are developed. We conclude with a discussion of emerging governance possibilities that may better address and account for the entangled material and social realities of oceans.