Noëlle Boucquey

Central to imagining and working toward alternate futures—futures more abundant, just, and caring than many in our more-than-human midst are experiencing now—is articulating the ways in which our present is already multiple, already pluriversal. Moreover, as academics interested in these ideals, we might consider it our political responsibility to share examples of the pluriverse where we find them. However, calls for illuminating and enacting the pluriverse are sometimes vague about what we can do beyond researching and publicizing important social movements. This paper argues that enrolling theories of care and commoning to examine everyday phenomena can be a powerful move toward identifying and amplifying the pluriverse. Care and commoning both foreground how more-than-human wellbeing is actively nurtured in collective, relational ways. Further, we argue that cities, outwardly prominent manifestations of “universal” capitalism, are in fact rich in pluriversality. The ways in which alternate realities (and possible futures) are performed is of course varied, uneven, and full of struggle. Here, we use a case study of urban fishing to document and amplify such performances as part of the project of moving toward abundant futures. We highlight especially the elements of urban fishing that resist a capitalist culture, namely, claiming time and space for rest, sharing, and connection with more-than-human others. In doing so, we show how the theoretical development of ideas of the pluriverse and abundant futures might be improved with focused empirical work.

•Shore fishing spaces in urban areas are important examples of ‘third places’.•Open and equitable access to shore fishing spaces promotes collective wellbeing.•Attention to ‘flows of care’ beyond social interactions in these spaces is crucial.•Third places foster social cohesion and encourage concern for other human and more-than-human elements of the space.•Physical infrastructure, wildlife, and water quality play a role in wellbeing. ‘Third places,’ accessible public spaces that encourage social interaction and do not represent work or home to their users, contribute to individual and community health and wellbeing. These places, however, are quickly disappearing in the U.S. and beyond due to increasing privatization and commoditization of space. Based on six years of survey and ethnographic data collection in and around Tampa Bay, Florida, we characterize shore fishing spaces – piers, bridges, seawalls, etc. – as third places, important to the wellbeing of fishers, their families, and their communities, but also threatened by enclosure. We draw together literature on the health benefits of third places and social infrastructure with scholarship on infrastructures of care and the agency of “more-than-human” actors to draw attention to flows of care in these spaces. We argue that benefits to wellbeing emerge not just from the social interactions fostered by shared convivial space and activity, but also from the “care labor” performed by other biotic and abiotic elements, such as physical infrastructure and wildlife. Furthermore, we argue that an important function of many third places is that they turn their users’ flows of care outwards, from a focus on self-care to care for other people and elements of the space. We conclude with theoretical and practical discussion of the importance of attention to these flows of care in shore fishing spaces, specifically, and third places more generally.

This paper analyzes how the more-than-human elements and relationships of urban fishing-piers, bridges, fish, social interactions-constitute spaces that offer the possibility of affecting community wellbeing. In particular, it applies theories of commoning to questions of how urban fishing spaces might affect the social and material dimensions of wellbeing. The paper argues that approaching ideas of community wellbeing from a commoning perspective enables deeper analysis of the 'messiness' and contradictions that can arise in accounting for the complex socio-natural interactions that affect wellbeing. The paper examines these questions via a case study of urban fishing in the Tampa Bay region of Florida. Employing survey, interview, and field research, the paper asks how urban fishing spaces support processes of commoning that could lead to increases in wellbeing, while also highlighting where disruptions in the ecological, physical, or social spaces involved in commoning might decrease wellbeing. The paper finds evidence that commoning can increase community wellbeing in concrete ways (e.g., by contributing to collective food security, knowledge-sharing, exposure to economic and racial diversity, and shared experiences), but that these processes and infrastructures are simultaneously precarious and subject to social strife, changes in legality, and ecological contamination which can decrease wellbeing. The paper suggests that particularly for geographies of urban wellbeing, adopting a commoning lens is useful for better parsing how the elements of and challenges to wellbeing are intertwined, and where possibilities might exist for addressing these challenges. The paper contributes to theoretical discussions about the characteristics of commoning, links between commoning and socionatural wellbeing, and shifting understandings of urban space and infrastructures of care.

Marine spatial planning (MSP) seeks to integrate traditionally disconnected oceans activities, management arrangements, and practices through a rational and comprehensive governance system. This article explores the emerging critical literature on MSP, focusing on key elements of MSP engaged by scholars: (1) planning discourse and narrative; (2) ocean economies and equity; (3) online ocean data and new digital ontologies; and (4) new and broad networks of ocean actors. The implications of these elements are then illustrated through a discussion of MSP in the United States. Critical scholars are beginning to go beyond applied or operational critiques of MSP projects to engage the underlying assumptions, practices, and relationships involved in planning. Interrogating MSP with interdisciplinary ideas drawn from critical social science disciplines, such as emerging applications of relational theory at sea, can provide insights into how MSP and other megaprojects both close and open new opportunities for social and environmental well-being.

We are currently in what might be termed a “third phase” of ocean enclosures around the world. This phase has involved an unprecedented intensity of map-making that supports an emerging regime of ocean governance where resources are geocoded, multiple and disparate marine uses are weighed against each other, spatial tradeoffs are made, and exclusive rights to spaces and resources are established. The discourse and practice of marine spatial planning inform the contours of this emerging regime. This paper examines the infrastructure of marine spatial planning via two ocean data portals recently created to support marine spatial planning on the East Coast of the United States. Applying theories of ontological politics, critical cartography, and a critical conceptualization of “care,” we examine portal performances in order to link their organization and imaging practices with the ideological and ontological work these infrastructures do, particularly in relation to environmental and human community actors. We further examine how ocean ontologies may be made durable through portal use and repetition, but also how such performances can “slip,” thereby creating openings for enacting marine spatial planning differently. Our analysis reveals how portal infrastructures assemble, edit, and visualize data, and how it matters to the success of particular performances of marine spatial planning.

Research on enclosure has often examined the phenomenon as a process and outcome of state, neoliberal, and hybrid territorial practices with detrimental impacts for those affected. The proliferation of increasingly complex environmental governance regimes and new enclosures, such as those now seen in the oceans, challenge these readings, however. Using the case of U.S. marine spatial planning (MSP), this article reexamines enclosure through the lens of assemblage. A comprehensive new approach to oceans governance based on spatial data and collaborative decision making, MSP appears to follow past governance programs toward a broad-scale rationalization and enclosure of U.S. waters. Yet this appearance might only be superficial. As an assemblage, U.S. MSP-and its shifting actors, associations, and practices-holds the potential to both close and open the seas for oceans communities, environments, and other actors. Planning actors use three practices to stabilize U.S. MSP for governance and enclosure: narrativizing MSP, creating a geospatial framework to underlie planning, and engaging stakeholders. These practices, however, simultaneously provide opportunities for communities and environments to intervene in U.S. MSP toward alternative outcomes. Rather than a closed seas, U.S. MSP presents opportunities for enclosure to happen differently or not at all, producing alternative outcomes for coastal and oceans communities, environments, and governance.

This paper uses a moral economy lens, further informed by political ecology, to explore social and political relationships between fishing groups. Understanding resource user groups’ moral economy discourses is critical given their potential influence on policy choices, and the real political and economic consequences of differential access to resources. This is particularly true for fishery resource access given current pushes for ocean planning and fears about the health of global fish stocks. Using a North Carolina case study of conflict over ‘game fish’ (fish reserved exclusively for recreational use), the paper explains how arguments over the material use of fishery resources, claims over ocean space, and ideas about the role of fish as a commodity fit into fishers’ larger moral economies. In doing so, it discusses fishers’ differing definitions of key concepts—like value, waste, and public resources—and how these divergent understandings contribute to miscommunication and conflict. This analysis finds that particular interpretations of ‘wise’ resource use have real consequences not only for specific people and communities but also for how political institutions demarcate the realm of possibilities for resource-use policies. The paper advances theoretical conversations about the role of moral economies in ‘first world’ locales and extends political ecology discussions of exurban landscape changes to ocean settings. •Examines moral economies of commercial and recreational fishers.•Moral economy discourses stem from material interactions with fishery resources and historical development patterns.•Fishers have divergent definitions of value, waste, and public resources.•Fisher moral economies have the potential to be encoded in fisheries policies, affecting material access to resources.