Maritime Imagination: A Cultural Oceanography of The Netherlands

Project Information

MaritimeImagination

Grant agreement ID: 838904

DOI

10.3030/838904

Project closed

EC signature date 5 April 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 1 March 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 239 817,60

EU contribution

€ 239 817,60

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MaritimeImagination (Maritime Imagination: A Cultural Oceanography of The Netherlands)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Contemporary and historical narrations of the Dutch relationship to the sea involve tales of maritime heroism and prowess. At the same time, the colonial-racial underpinnings of Dutch expansion overseas remain invisible. Conventional land-based accounts of Dutch empire and colonialism simply mention the ocean in passing, often as a route between colony and metropole. In Maritime Imagination, I develop an oceanic framework for the study of Dutch imperialism and its aftermath. Following a turn to the ocean in recent humanities and social science research, I ask what a turn to the ocean might teach us about Dutch imperial imaginaries, cultures, and politics. Tracing the movements of Dutch ships and stories of Dutch maritime prowess across oceans, this project strengthens the conceptual and theoretical framework of Ocean, Colonial and Globalization Studies by highlighting the formative role of Dutch maritime imagination and its impact in shaping colonial, imperial, racial, gendered, and capitalist discourses. The aim is to improve our understanding of the political, socio-economic and cultural role of the ocean in the transportation of cultures, people, goods, and legal regimes across Dutch empire. It maps and analyzes the shifting legal, cultural, socio-economic and political discourses of the Dutch maritime world (1600 - present) to better understand its impact on state and empire formation. Constructing a cultural oceanography of Dutch empire, the project shifts the classic focus on land to the importance of the sea. This shift to the ocean expands pressing public debates in The Netherlands, Europe and elsewhere on revisiting, revising, researching, and representing colonial histories in a globalized present. By collaborating with the cultural and academic sector, I develop new ways of communicating academic research to a broader audience through public events and interdisciplinary curriculum development. With this project, I have shown the importance of turning to the ocean as a framework and methodology for the study of Dutch imperialism and its aftermath. In conclusion, Dutch maritime imagination has deeply impacted European imperialist and legal thought. From racialised discourses of trade and navigation to contemporary imaginaries of climate catastrophe and rising sea levels, Dutch maritime imagination continues to impact how we address contemporary societal and environmental challenges.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The past two years, I have been deeply invested in expanding my knowledge on a vast array of topics pertaining to Dutch and European imperial history and the ocean through the fields of (post)colonial studies, black studies, critical ocean studies, critical indigenous studies, and critical legal studies.

I have completed a series of articles and book chapters; a book proposal entitled 'I Own, Therefore I Am: The Global Afterlives of the Grotian Propertied Subject'; two academic symposia at the intersection of arts, society and scholarship; a personal website and blog; the compilation of a co-edited volume; a public exhibition; an ocean intensive for MA students in Critical Studies; a series of video and performance lectures that integrate theory and visual art.

In my article for 'Postcolonial Studies', I investigate the relationship between ideas about rational man, slavery, indigenous dispossession and the ocean in the work of Hugo Grotius. It has received the ASCA Article of the Year Award in 2022 and is being translated in Portuguese. In the 'Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies' I have published an article explaining the methodological (cultural oceanography) and analytical (maritime imagination) innovations of the project by examining the role of the ship in the contested Dutch Sinterklaas tradition. With Dr. Renisa Mawani I have co-authored two book chapters that shed light on COVID-19 from the perspective of ships and shipping and the challenges faced by those adrift at sea during the pandemic (Oxford UP and London University Press). A fourth article was published in 'Angelaki: journal of the theoretical humanities' examining the thingification of the ocean in the Dutch legal archive. I also developed a series of talks and a book chapter on the massacre on the Dutch slave ship Leusden based on existing and newly discovered archival material.

I have presented my work on numerous occasions in Europe and internationally. My highlight was coorganizing Oceans as Archives with Renisa Mawani and Kristie Flannery, which was attended by scholars, students, activists, and cultural workers from around the globe. The first edition included a public commemoration ceremony co-organized with the Banda 2021 working group in memory of the Dutch East India Company genocide of the Indigenous population of the Banda Islands in 1621. The second edition included an exhibition and performance program, which included artists from South Africa, India, Canada, UK, Russia, and the United States.

I've obtained my Teaching Certificate at UBC and developed a seminar series on ocean justice for the MA program Critical Studies at the Sandberg Institute.

Connecting Netherlands and Canada based researchers, I organized a public lecture with Dr. Mawani at the Amsterdam Sandberg Institute and another with Dr. Gloria Wekker at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Mawani and I also presented a talk at SOAS, London.

During the pandemic, I developed visual material to accompany the intellectual work of the project in the form of video essays. The visual materials include underwater footage I shot in the Salish and North Sea. I have presented this work at the University of Amsterdam, the Rietveld Academy, and the Design Academy Eindhoven

These past three years have been eventful, challenging, and inspiring. The project has expanded in unforeseen directions and it has been really rewarding to see how my project was received by the public during the incoming phase.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project impacts contemporary public and academic debates taking place both inside and outside of Europe on how to deal with Europe's colonial legacy, including imperialism, slavery, colonial and racial violence. What is unique about Maritime Imagination is that it looks at this topic from an oceanic perspective and sheds light on the limitations of contemporary approaches to climate change.

Besides research, it has been of fundamental importance to the project to bring together scholarly, artistic and social and cultural sector perspectives on the central themes of the project. I have done this by co-organizing the Oceans as Archives series and by collaborating with colleagues in the cultural sector. Furthermore, I will use the output of the project as a base from which to write an ERC starting grant proposal to expand my work on maritime imagination by looking beyond the immediate Dutch context.

Since the start of the project, my development of an oceanic framework - following the groundbreaking work of my supervisor Dr. Mawani - has opened up an ocean of possibilities for expanding the research. There is so much to do! For that reason, I have already created new output sources and opportunities that initially were not part of the project, but have emerged since I've started. These include the ocean justice seminars, public talks, and the development of educational and research material on oceans and shipping. It has also included additional publications, new cross-institutional collaborations, and video work.

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