The oceans have a history!

The Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme is pleased to invite you to the first meeting in the series ‘Oceans: common heritage, shared challenges’, on Tuesday 11 March at 6.30pm. It will bring together experts Romain Grancher (Research Fellow at the CNRS) and Romy Hentinger (Director of the Advocacy and International Cooperation Department of the Tara Ocean Foundation), in the presence of Dominique Leglu (Sciences & Avenir journalist).

In recent decades, seas and oceans have emerged as historical subjects in their own right. A true ‘oceanic turn’ in social science research has given rise to new approaches and questions. Drawing inspiration from environmental history—which places ecosystems and non-human actors at the center of historical inquiry—these perspectives have reshaped the way oceans are perceived in historiography. No longer seen as empty, untamed, and threatening spaces, they are now recognized as populated, transformed, and endangered environments.

From whaling to oil spills, from the rise of oyster farming to the invention of the diving suit, this discussion will explore a wide range of cases, highlighting the urgency and importance of writing the environmental history of the sea.

• Presentation of this stream of research
• The sea, a recent object of environmental history

The main lines of an environmental history of the sea :

• The appropriation of maritime spaces and their resources: a legal approach, from the debates surrounding the freedom of the seas in the 17th century to those raised today by the status of the deep seabed or the extension of marine protected areas
• The resources of the sea and their exploitation by past societies
• The issue of over-exploitation of marine resources and the end of the myth of the inexhaustible sea
• Conservation and protection measures for marine species
• Marine pollution
• The construction of knowledge about the sea