Project description
Studying the environmental threats to marine ecosystems
Human-induced change in marine ecosystems has greatly increased in the past 60 years. According to the European Environment Agency, the seas have become busier places, driven by a combination of technological advances and society’s increasing demand for food, energy and other resources. The EU-funded AQUATIC project will investigate the environmental threats to marine ecosystems in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. It seeks to understand the effect of social categorisation on socio-material practices. Specifically, it will focus on two cases – both under threat but marked by opposite rationales regarding the formulation of the threat: eutrophication in the Baltic Sea as a case where life growth is described as harmful, and the threat posed to Posidonia oceanica in the Mediterranean as a case where life needs protection.
Objective
AQUATIC investigates multi-stakeholder engagement, practices, and processes of social categorization in the context of environmental threats to marine ecosystems in the Baltic and the Mediterranean Seas. The action uses a theoretical framework that combines a focus on temporal narratives, a more-than-human approach, and intersectionality to understand the effect of social categorization on sociomaterial practices. This framework has been specifically developed based on preliminary policy analysis to meet the specificities of environmental threats to marine ecosystems. The project studies two cases in which a local ecosystem is threatened. Both cases offer opposed rationales in the formulation of the threat: eutrophication in the Baltic Sea as a case where life growth is described as harmful, and the threat posed to posidonia oceanica in the Mediterranean as a case where life needs protection. The methodological approach uses ethnography, documentary analysis, and participatory workshops to critically analyse the discourses and practices involved in tackling these two challenges. The action offers two contributions: 1) the consolidation of the concept of more-than-human intersectionality; 2) the development of more-than-human participatory methods. The project presents a strong combination of theoretical development and solid empirical work that matches the host’s experience working with topics of temporality, human-nonhuman relations, practices, and engagement. The proposed action supports the objectives of the MSCA through knowledge transfer between the applicant and the host institution that involves two-way collaboration, teaching and supervision; through international mobility and the building of interdisciplinary networks; through a carefully developed outreach plan with societal and policy impact that involves a variety of stakeholders; and through the centrality of interdisciplinarity and gender to the action’s development and implementation.
Fields of science
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
EX4 4QJ Exeter
United Kingdom