Pumping out the sands, building up the airport, and undermining the territorial integrity: a proposal for rethinking territory and marine governance

Keywords: sand mining, ocean, marine governance,Taiwan Strait
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 12

Abstract

Since 2020, thousands of Chinese sand dredgers have been swarming around the Matsu Islands, an archipelago under the jurisdiction of Taiwan, dropping anchors and pumping sand from the ocean floor of the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan expelled dredgers and sand-transporting vessels from “areas” under its control, up to six kilometres from the coastline. The dispute, as critical scholars noted, problematises the ontology that underlies the work on territory and ocean governance—the ocean is a flat space that can be zoned and territorialised. Attention thus shifted from considering the ocean as a flat terrestrial legal boundary to regarding it as a dynamic, volumetric entity, constantly shaped by the distinct qualities of ocean and human endeavours. While such thought-provoking work offers crucial insight into marine governance, its emphasis on the fluid, liquid, and shifting qualities of water unconsciously draws a distinction between the land and the sea. By following the geophysical material—the sand—this paper proposes an approach to perceiving territory that foregrounds the importance of the geo and human endeavours: a social-material assemblage cutting across the sea and land boundaries. The territory is dynamic, constantly made and remade by the social-material assemblage. From this perspective, this paper reconceptualises the ocean as a space of becoming and betweenness.