Relating to the Sea: Enlivening the Ocean as an Actor in Eastern Sri Lanka

Abstract

Elements deemed part of ‘nature’ or the ‘environment’ have long been considered factors in political and social realities, but recent work by environmental historians, feminists, poststructuralists, and particularly posthumanists calls for them to be understood as actors. In this paper I build a case for considering the ocean as an actor on Sri Lanka's east coast, by bringing concepts around relationality and nonhuman agency into conversation with social theories of the sea and with the lived experiences of coastal residents. The ocean occupies a dynamic and central role on Sri Lanka's East coast, as demonstrated through daily practices and its centrality in the area's armed conflict, as well as by the devastation wreaked by the 2004 tsunami. By understanding the ocean as an actor it is possible to gain insight into the intersections of various phenomena, such as armed conflict and natural disaster, and to amplify the voices of those who occupy space closest to those intersections.