Course Syllabus
Obiettivi
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Conoscenza e comprensione: acquisire una comprensione approfondita delle principali questioni relative allo studio degli oceani e degli spazi transnazionali secondo le prospettive della geopolitica critica, della geopolitica ambientale e della giustizia ambientale; comprendere la letteratura scientifica e le narrative riguardanti la geopolitica oceanica e le dinamiche in corso nella competizione per il potere marittimo.
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Conoscenza e comprensione applicate: sviluppare competenze avanzate per analizzare criticamente documenti e narrazioni mediatiche relative alla governance degli oceani e alla giustizia ambientale; applicare metodi interdisciplinari per studiare le dimensioni geopolitiche, ambientali e sociali degli spazi marittimi.
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Autonomia di giudizio: esercitare un giudizio critico sulle strategie geopolitiche e sulle sfide della giustizia ambientale legate alla governance oceanica e al controllo delle risorse; valutare gli interessi contrastanti e le relazioni di potere che modellano la gestione transnazionale dei mari e degli oceani.
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Abilità comunicative: comunicare in modo chiaro ed efficace idee complesse e analisi sulla giustizia ambientale e la geopolitica del mare a diversi pubblici.
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Capacità di apprendere: sviluppare la capacità di condurre in modo autonomo studi e ricerche interdisciplinari sulla giustizia ambientale e la geopolitica marittima; coltivare una consapevolezza critica dei dibattiti scientifici e degli sviluppi geopolitici in evoluzione relativi agli oceani e alle questioni ambientali transnazionali.
Contenuti sintetici
Dopo una breve introduzione sugli approcci più recenti alla geografia politica e alla geopolitica critica, il corso si concentra dapprima sulla rappresentazione storica dell’oceano come “spazio politico e sociale” e su come il mare possa essere inquadrato dal discorso geopolitico internazionale, in relazione ai processi di territorializzazione, di geo-power e di extra-territorialità degli spazi marini.
La seconda parte del corso riguarda tematiche più specifiche di ecologia politica e riguarda i temi della giustizia/ingiustizia ambientale, con particolare riferimento alle questioni di protezione/conservazione delle aree marine, dell'ocean grabbing e dei diritti delle popolazioni indigene.
Programma esteso
Prima parte (Elena dell'Agnese)
La geografia politica del mare: l' approccio "classico"
Una geo-grafia politica (critica) del mare?
La geo-grafia e il potere della rappresentazione /Dividere (e nominare) il mare oceanico: la questione Mare Orientale/Mar del Giappone
La territorializzazione del mare /Rivendicazioni territoriali e dispute sulle isole: la questione Dokdo-Takeshima
Definizioni geografiche e controversie sulle isole: la questione Sankeku-Diaoyu/il cambiamento climatico e la scomparsa di isole/rifugi: Okininotori: uno shima o una barriera corallina?
Un approccio classico alla geopolitica del mare/il mito del potere marittimo: Posizioni teoriche di A.T. Mahan / La Cina come potenza marittima e la competizione nel Mar Cinese Meridionale (Spratly, Paracel e altro)
Potere marittimo, nodi marittimi e isole come basi statunitensi: Le Hawaii e Pearl Harbor, Midway e Wake, Guam
Potere del mare, nodi marini e isole come basi statunitensi all'estero/basi dell'impero e ninfee: Guantanamo, Micronesia e Isole Marshall, Okinawa, Diego Garcia
LSMPA (Large Scale Maritime Protected Areas): conservazione o geopolitica?
Extraterritorialità e turismo da crociera come esempio di globalizzazione
Geopolitica degli oceani e giustizia ambientale
Seconda parte (Marco Nocente)
Ambientalismo, Environmental Justice e Blue Economy
Colonialismo, potere e giustizia più-che-umana
Concettualizzare l'Economia Blu
Casi studio: pratiche di ocean grabbing
Caso studio: le politiche neoliberali della conservazione (Aree marine protette, zone economiche esclusive, parchi nazionali)
Ambiente e memoria: le politiche per la conservazione delle isole
Caso studio: Isole Carcere
Opporsi alla Blue Economy: Policymaking ed epistemologie indigene
Politiche per la sovranità alimentare
Epistemologie indigene
Seminari Environmental Justice:
Environmental Justice e migrazione
Analisi visuale dei conflitti ambientali: i casi di Venezia e Taranto
Prerequisiti
nessuno
Modalità didattica
42 ore, lingua inglese / didattica erogativa in presenza: 70% (30 ore)/ didattica a distanza: 30% (12 ore)
Materiale didattico
Letture suggerite
Prima parte:
De Santo, E. M. (2024). Securitizing Marine Protected Areas: Geopolitics, Environmental Justice, and Science. Taylor & Francis.
Seconda parte:
Gli articoli e i capitoli in grassetto sono obbligatori.
Gli studenti frequentanti devono selezionare altri due articoli aggiuntivi (dalle sezioni 1, 2, 3, 4).
Gli studenti non frequentanti devono selezionare altri tre articoli (dalle sezioni 1, 2, 3, 4 e 5).
1: Environmentalism, Environmental Justice and the Blue Economy:
• Mohai, P., Pellow, D. and Roberts, J. T. (2009). Environmental justice. Annual review of environment and resources, 34, 405-430.
• Schlosberg, D. (2007). Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature. Oxford University Press. (Chapter 1 and 2: "Defining Environmental Justice" and “Distribution and Beyond: Conceptions of Justice in Contemporary Theory and Practice").
• Midlen, A. (2021). What is the Blue Economy? A spatialised governmentality perspective. Maritime Studies, 20(4), 423-448.
• Whyte, K. (2018). Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice. Environment and Society, 9(1), 125-144.
• Brock, A. J., & Dunlap, A. (2021). Normalising corporate counterinsurgency: Engineering consent, managing resistance and greening destruction around the Hambach coal mine and beyond. Political Geography, 102521.
• Pellow, D. N. (2017). Environmental justice movements and political opportunity structures. In The Routledge handbook of environmental justice (pp. 37-49). Routledge.
2. Conceptualising the blue economy, ocean grabbing and the neoliberal politics of conservation:
• Hau'ofa, E. (2017). Our Sea of Islands. In Peoples of the Pacific (pp. 429–442). Routledge.
• Barbesgaard, M. (2018). Blue Growth: Savior or Ocean Grabbing? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 45(1), pp. 130–149.
• Okafor-Yarwood, I. (2019). 'Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and the complexities of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for countries in the Gulf of Guinea'. Marine Policy, 99, pp. 414–422.
• Hung, P. Y. (2025). Bordered-in, Bordered-out, and overlapping territorialities in ocean space: the case of fisheries. In Ocean Governance (Beyond) Borders (pp. 75-98). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
• Bennett, N. J. and Dearden, P. (2014). Why local people do not support conservation: Community perceptions of marine protected area livelihood impacts, governance and management in Thailand'. Marine Policy, 44, pp. 107–116.
• Ojeda, D. (2012). Green Pretexts: Ecotourism, Neoliberal Conservation and Land Grabbing in Tayrona National Natural Park, Colombia'. Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2), pp.357–375. Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2), pp. 357–375.
3. Environment and memory: the politics of conservation
• Agnoletto, P., Di Quarto, F., & Nocente, M. (2024). Capraia Island and Its Representation in Audiovisual Media: Recounting a carceral, agro-pastoral and eco-touristic landscape. Shima, 18(2), 140-155.
• Nocente, M. (2026), Small islands at the centre of the sovereign projects: carceral historical geographies of Asinara and Capraia, in: Di Matteo, G. (eds.). Islands as crossroads: reimagining mobilities in the Mediterranean, Posidonia collana di studi insulari, 173-190.
• Astudillo, F. J., Hunt, C. A., Aizpurúa, I. I. and Carvajal-Contreras, D. R. (2024). From Prison Islands to Island Paradises: Are Violent Histories Being Overwritten with Nature-Based Tourism Imaginaries?'. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, 26(2–3), pp. 243–265.
4. Opposing the Blue Economy: Neoliberal policymaking and Indigenous Epistemologies
• Trauger, A. (2014). Towards a Political Geography of Food Sovereignty: Transforming Territory, Exchange, and Power in the Liberal Sovereign State. Journal of Peasant Studies, 41(6), pp.1131–1152.
• Ulloa, A. (2017). 'Perspectives of environmental justice from indigenous peoples of Latin America: A relational indigenous environmental justice'. Environmental Justice, 10(6), pp. 175–180.
• Camargo, X. S. (2019). 'The ecocentric turn of environmental justice in Colombia'. King's Law Journal, 30(2), pp.224–233.
5. For students who do not attend the seminars:
• Benetti, S., Gamba, S., & Grasso, M. (2023). Taranto: a flickering landscape of illusory progress, vanished hope, and invisible beauty. Landscape Research, 48(8), 1054-1072.
• Walker, S., Giacomelli, E. (2024). Encountering mobility (in)justice through the lived experiences of fishing communities in Dakar and Saint Louis, Senegal. MOBILITIES, 0, 1-17 [10.1080/17450101.2024.2334705].
Periodo di erogazione dell'insegnamento
Secondo semestre
Modalità di verifica del profitto e valutazione
Un colloquio orale individuale che prevede la discussione e l’approfondimento dei contenuti del corso, in particolare sulle tematiche di geopolitica del mare e giustizia ambientale, la possibilità di analizzare casi studio o rispondere a domande aperte che stimolano la riflessione interdisciplinare, la valutazione delle competenze relative alla conoscenza teorica, all’applicazione critica, all’autonomia di giudizio e alle abilità comunicative.
Orario di ricevimento
su appuntamento, di persona o online
Sustainable Development Goals
Aims
- Knowledge and understanding: acquire a deep understanding of the main issues related to the study of oceans and transnational spaces from the perspectives of critical geopolitics, environmental geopolitics, and environmental justice; understand the scientific literature and narratives concerning oceanic geopolitics and the ongoing dynamics of sea-power competition.
2)Applied knowledge and understanding: develop advanced skills to critically analyze documents, and media narratives related to ocean governance and environmental justice; apply interdisciplinary methods to study geopolitical, environmental, and social dimensions of maritime spaces.
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Making judgments: exercise critical judgment on the geopolitical strategies and environmental justice challenges linked to ocean governance and resource control; evaluate competing interests and power relations shaping the transnational management of seas and oceans.
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Communication skills: communicate clearly and effectively complex ideas and analyses on environmental justice and geopolitics of the sea to diverse audiences.
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Learning skills: develop the capacity to independently conduct interdisciplinary studies and research on environmental justice and maritime geopolitics; cultivate critical awareness of evolving scientific debates and geopolitical developments related to oceans and transnational environmental issues.
Contents
After a short introduction to the most recent theoretical approaches to political geography and critical geopolitics, the course focuses first on the historical representation of the ocean as a "political and social space" and on how the sea can be framed by international geopolitical discourse, in relation to the processes of territorialisation, geo-power and extra-territoriality of marine spaces.
The second part of the course deals with more specific issues of political ecology and covers the topics of environmental justice/injustice, with particular reference to the themes of protection/conservation of marine areas, ocean grabbing and the rights of indigenous peoples.
Detailed program
First part (Elena dell'Agnese)
The political geography of the sea: the "classical" approach
A (critical) political geo-graphy of the sea? thinking about the sea / representing the sea / exploiting the “geopolitical features” of the sea
Geo-graphy and the power of representation /Dividing (and naming) the ocean sea: the East Sea/ Sea of Japan issue
The territorialisation of the sea /Territorial claims and islands disputes: the Dokdo-Takeshima issue
Geographical definitions and island disputes: the Sankeku-Diaoyu issue/ climate change and vanishing islands/reefs: Okininotori: a shima, or a reef’?
A classical approach to the geopolitics of the sea/ the myth of sea power: A.T. Mahan theoretical positions / China as a maritime power and the South China Sea competition (Spratly, Paracel and more)
Sea power, sea nodes and islands as U.S. bases: The Hawai’i and Pearl Harbor, Midway and Wake, Guam
Sea power, sea nodes and islands as overseas U.S. bases/ bases of empire and lily pads: Guantanamo, Micronesia and Marshall Islands, Okinawa, Diego Garcia
LSMPAs (Large Scale Maritime Protected Areas): conservation or geopolitics?
Extra-territoriality and Cruise tourism as an example of globalization
Geopolitics of the oceans and environmental justice
Second part (Marco Nocente)
Environmentalism, Environmental Justice and the Blue Economy
Colonialism, power and more-than-human justice
Conceptualising the 'Blue Economy'.
Case studies: ocean grabbing practices
Case study: the neoliberal politics of conservation (Marine protected areas, exclusive economic zones, National parks)
Environment and memory: The politics of island conservation
Case study: Prison Islands
Opposing the Blue Economy: Policymaking and Indigenous Epistemologies
Food sovereignty policies
Indigenous epistemologies
Environmental Justice seminars
Environmental justice and Migrations
Visual Analysis of Environmental Conflicts: The Cases of Venice and Taranto
Prerequisites
none
Teaching form
42 hours / English / delivered didactic: 70% (30 hours) / interactive didactic : 30% (12 hours)
Textbook and teaching resource
Suggested readings:
First part:
De Santo, E. M. (2024). Securitizing Marine Protected Areas: Geopolitics, Environmental Justice, and Science. Taylor & Francis.
Second part:
The articles and chapters in bold are mandatory.
The students who attended the course should select other two additional articles (see point 1, 2, 3, 4)
The students who didn’t attended the course should select other three articles (see point 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).
1: Environmentalism, Environmental Justice and the Blue Economy:
• Mohai, P., Pellow, D. and Roberts, J. T. (2009). Environmental justice. Annual review of environment and resources, 34, 405-430.
• Schlosberg, D. (2007). Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature. Oxford University Press. (Chapter 1 and 2: "Defining Environmental Justice" and “Distribution and Beyond: Conceptions of Justice in Contemporary Theory and Practice").
• Midlen, A. (2021). What is the Blue Economy? A spatialised governmentality perspective. Maritime Studies, 20(4), 423-448.
• Whyte, K. (2018). Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice. Environment and Society, 9(1), 125-144.
• Brock, A. J., & Dunlap, A. (2021). Normalising corporate counterinsurgency: Engineering consent, managing resistance and greening destruction around the Hambach coal mine and beyond. Political Geography, 102521.
• Pellow, D. N. (2017). Environmental justice movements and political opportunity structures. In The Routledge handbook of environmental justice (pp. 37-49). Routledge.
2. Conceptualising the blue economy, ocean grabbing and the neoliberal politics of conservation:
• Hau'ofa, E. (2017). Our Sea of Islands. In Peoples of the Pacific (pp. 429–442). Routledge.
• Barbesgaard, M. (2018). Blue Growth: Savior or Ocean Grabbing? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 45(1), pp. 130–149.
• Okafor-Yarwood, I. (2019). 'Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and the complexities of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for countries in the Gulf of Guinea'. Marine Policy, 99, pp. 414–422.
• Hung, P. Y. (2025). Bordered-in, Bordered-out, and overlapping territorialities in ocean space: the case of fisheries. In Ocean Governance (Beyond) Borders (pp. 75-98). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
• Bennett, N. J. and Dearden, P. (2014). Why local people do not support conservation: Community perceptions of marine protected area livelihood impacts, governance and management in Thailand'. Marine Policy, 44, pp. 107–116.
• Ojeda, D. (2012). Green Pretexts: Ecotourism, Neoliberal Conservation and Land Grabbing in Tayrona National Natural Park, Colombia'. Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2), pp.357–375. Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2), pp. 357–375.
3. Environment and memory: the politics of conservation
• Agnoletto, P., Di Quarto, F., & Nocente, M. (2024). Capraia Island and Its Representation in Audiovisual Media: Recounting a carceral, agro-pastoral and eco-touristic landscape. Shima, 18(2), 140-155.
• Nocente, M. (2026), Small islands at the centre of the sovereign projects: carceral historical geographies of Asinara and Capraia, in: Di Matteo, G. (eds.). Islands as crossroads: reimagining mobilities in the Mediterranean, Posidonia collana di studi insulari, 173-190.
• Astudillo, F. J., Hunt, C. A., Aizpurúa, I. I. and Carvajal-Contreras, D. R. (2024). From Prison Islands to Island Paradises: Are Violent Histories Being Overwritten with Nature-Based Tourism Imaginaries?'. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, 26(2–3), pp. 243–265.
4. Opposing the Blue Economy: Neoliberal policymaking and Indigenous Epistemologies
• Trauger, A. (2014). Towards a Political Geography of Food Sovereignty: Transforming Territory, Exchange, and Power in the Liberal Sovereign State. Journal of Peasant Studies, 41(6), pp.1131–1152.
• Ulloa, A. (2017). 'Perspectives of environmental justice from indigenous peoples of Latin America: A relational indigenous environmental justice'. Environmental Justice, 10(6), pp. 175–180.
• Camargo, X. S. (2019). 'The ecocentric turn of environmental justice in Colombia'. King's Law Journal, 30(2), pp.224–233.
5. For students who do not attend the seminars:
• Benetti, S., Gamba, S., & Grasso, M. (2023). Taranto: a flickering landscape of illusory progress, vanished hope, and invisible beauty. Landscape Research, 48(8), 1054-1072.
• Walker, S., Giacomelli, E. (2024). Encountering mobility (in)justice through the lived experiences of fishing communities in Dakar and Saint Louis, Senegal. MOBILITIES, 0, 1-17 [10.1080/17450101.2024.2334705].
Semester
Second Semester
Assessment method
An individual oral interview that involves the discussion and in-depth analysis of the course content, particularly focusing on topics related to maritime geopolitics and environmental justice; the possibility to analyze case studies or answer open-ended questions that encourage interdisciplinary reflection; and the assessment of skills related to theoretical knowledge, critical application, independent judgment, and communication abilities.
Office hours
by appointment, in person or online
