Stream Convenor: Dr Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood. School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, Scotland. imoy1@st-andrews.ac.uk
Abstract.
African oceans have long been more than ecological or economic spaces; they are embedded in systems of meaning, spirituality, and governance. Across the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean coasts, African communities have understood the ocean as a source of life, purification, and regeneration (Tounouga, 2003). These understandings shaped systems of stewardship, resource management, and social organisation grounded in reciprocity.
This stream positions African oceans as sites of narrative contestation, where competing epistemologies: ancestral, colonial, scientific, and technocratic, interact. Colonial interventions and capitalist expansion reframed oceans as extractive frontiers, disrupting human–ocean relationships and reconfiguring governance systems. As Mbembe (2001) argues, struggles over space and resources are inseparable from broader questions of power and representation, while Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018) draws attention to the persistence of coloniality in shaping knowledge systems.
These tensions are reflected in contemporary governance frameworks, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), which structures maritime space through jurisdictional and resource control. Although essential, this legal ordering often sits uneasily alongside relational and community-based understandings of the ocean. Emerging approaches, including Social Accounts, attempt to integrate social dimensions such as equity and livelihoods, yet raise questions about whose knowledge is recognised. As de Sousa Santos (2014) argues, meaningful transformation necessitates accepting plural knowledge systems.
Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, this stream explores how ocean narratives are constructed and mobilised in Africa, and how integrating historical and cultural understandings can support an equitable and sustainable ocean governance.
This stream complements emerging research on equitable ocean governance by placing oceans at the centre of African studies and foregrounding the intersections of narrative, power, and governance. Panels within this stream may include but are not limited to: Oceans as Lived Worlds: Spirituality, Culture, and Knowledge Systems; Disruption and Reconfiguration: Colonialism, Capitalism, and Ocean Governance; Data, Power, and Representation: Whose Ocean Counts?; and Reclaiming the Ocean: Towards Just and Inclusive Futures.
