Maritime Borders, State Power and Territorialities over the Ocean: A Perspective from Taiwan

press release: While borders traverse both land and sea, current research has mostly concentrated on issues concerning terrestrial borders. Assumptions about state governance based on the terrestrial borders have been complicated by the depth and relative unboundedness of ocean waters. Simultaneously, a new body of scholarship has shown how the seemingly boundless oceans are in actuality subject to a variety of bordering forces. Accordingly, this talk will use two cases from Taiwan to reconsider current research on maritime borders in geography and other related disciplines, with a specific focus on state territoriality. The first relates to the offshore wind farm construction and the “green-green” dilemma between the green energy governance and marine animal conservation over the ocean. The second concerns the contested fishing gray zone near the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands) among Taiwan, Japan, and China, and the interweaving of colonial, cold-war, and marine resource borders of East Asia. Conclusively, I propose land-ocean inter-bordering, multiple materialities, and mobile state power as three future issues to respond to the rapid-changing maritime borders and the state territorialities.

Yi-Fu Tuan Lecture Series presentations take place every Friday during the semester at 3:30 PM, either in Room 180 of Science Hall or on Zoom. Brown bag sessions start at noon on the days there are speakers. Alumni, friends and the public are always invited to attend.