World Oceans Day & Environmental Injustice in the Anthropocene Ocean

In the 1980s, the concept of environmental justice emerged in the United States recognising the disproportional distribution of environmental pollution and hazardous waste with Black communities and  socio-economically disadvantaged populations experiencing more environmental burdens and having less access to benefits. Comparably little attention has, so far, been paid to environmental justice issues in connection with marine and coastal environments. Here, too, impacts are "unequally distributed geographically and produce socially differentiated impacts across racial, ethnic, gender, age and socio-economic groups". One of the reasons why marginalised groups experience worse impacts is that they are often inadequately considered and mostly excluded from the deciscion-making process (Bennett et al., 2022). 

These colonial and racist acts fail to recognize ancestral ocean ownership and tenure rights, inclusion of marginalized communities in decisions, respect for human rights, and consideration of social and health impacts in the formulation of pollution prevention approaches. (Bennett et al., 2022)

Bennett et al. (2022) discuss five key hazards in the marine and coastal environment affecting some communities and populations more than others: (1) pollution and toxic waste, (2) plastics and marine debris, (3) climate change, (4) ecosystem, biodiversity and ecosystem service degradation, and (5) fisheries declines.

Liboiron (2021) challenges us to think about plastics as a form of colonialism enabled by global capitalist expansion. The amount of plastic waste generated per capita by individuals in many low- and middle-income countries is substantially less than individuals from high-income countries (Euromap, 2016; UNEP, 2021a). Fifteen countries account for 73.9% of the plastic waste that is exported, 11 of these countries are from the OECD (Pedra & Gonçalves, 2020). However, many Low- and Middle-Income Countries are unable to adequately manage their own plastic waste let alone the burgeoning amount of plastic waste shipped from High-Income Countries (Ritchie & Roser, 2018). The UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics underscored how this issue compounds due to the lack of adequate reception and processing facilities in lower income countries (Orellana, 2021). When combined with local gaps in waste management, this leads to substantially greater land-based inputs of plastics into the ocean with associated increases in environmental and societal impacts for populations in lower income countries (Pedra & Gonçalves, 2020; UNEP, 2021b, 2021a). (Bennett et al., 2022)

Some interesting excerpts:

emerged in the 1980s in the United States from concerns about the disproportionate burdens of pollution that were being placed on and experienced by Black communities and socio economically disadvantaged populations (Bullard, 1994; Cutter, 1995). Environmental justice research demonstrated that polluting infrastructure, such as oil refineries, mining and factories, as well as air pollution emissions and toxic waste disposal sites, were often situated near Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities (Bullard, 2018; Walker, 2012). Such environmental discrimination and racism was shown to be producing numerous negative health effects and wellbeing outcomes for these populations (Brulle & Pellow, 2006). The field of environmental justice has since grown globally and expanded to focus on a broader set of environmental hazards and harms, including climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss, and declines in ecosystem services (Boyd, 2022; Chaudhary et al., 2018; Mutz et al., 2002; Sikor, 2013; Sze & London, 2008; Tsosie, 2007). Environmental justice has also come to refer broadly to both the distribution of environmental burdens and access to benefits, as well as the recognition, meaningful involvement and fair treatment of people in environmental decision making and legal frameworks emerged in the 1980s in the United States from concerns about the disproportionate burdens of pollution that were being placed on and experienced by Black communities and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations (Bullard, 1994; Cutter, 1995). Environmental justice research demonstrated that polluting infrastructure, such as oil refineries, mining and factories, as well as air pollution emissions and toxic waste disposal sites, were often transform-situated near Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities (Bullard, 2018; Walker, 2012). Such environmental discrimination and racism was shown to be producing numerous negative health effects and wellbeing outcomes for these populations (Brulle & Pellow, 2006). The field of environmental justice has since grown globally and expanded to focus on a broader set of environmental hazards and harms, including climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss, and declines in (Boyd, 2022; Chaudhary et al., 2018; Mutz et al., 2002; Sikor, 2013; Sze & London, 2008; Tsosie, 2007). Environmental justice has also come to refer broadly to both the distribution of environmental burdens and access to benefits, as well as the recognition, meaningful involvement and fair treatment of people in environmental decision making and legal frameworks. Historically marginalized groups, groups that rely on subsistence harvesting or small-scale fisheries, and low-income nations tend to be disproportionately exposed to and impacted by increasing chemical and biological contamination in the ocean (Landrigan et al., 2018; Liboiron, 2021), a problem which perpetuates and exacerbates pre-existing inequalities. For example, the worst social-environmental impacts and public health effects of pollution are often experienced and absorbed by Indigenous people, people of color, and women (Landrigan et al., 2018; Liboiron, 2021). Inuit women from the Arctic are still among the most contaminated humans with POPs such as PCB and PFAS, while struggling for food safety and security and being affected by underlying health risks due to chronic and emerging diseases such as breast cancer and endocrine disruption in the face of climate change (AMAP, 2021; Ghisari et al., 2014; Wielsøe et al., 2017). Indigenous populations and small-scale fishers who consume high amounts of fish or mammals are exposed to the effects of methylmercury on their health (Donatuto et al., 2011; Probyn, 2018). Afro-American communities, who have tolerated the burden of colonialism and impacts of top-down government policies for generations, have been disproportionately impacted by offshore oil and gas exploitation in coastal Louisiana where they have faced persistent industrial hazards from the myriad of old pipeline infrastructure that impair coastal marshes and produce health and livelihood impacts (Maldonado, 2018; Randolph, 2021). The golbal nature of the disposal of pollution and other wastes in the ocean reveals patterns of environmental racism, with the dumping of wastes and the breaking of ships often occurring in the lower income countries in Africa and Asia (Frey, 2015; Okafor-Yarwood & Adewumi, 2020; Wan et al., 2021). Oil exploration and exploitation also tends to be more polluting in lower income countries - such as Ecuador, Nigeria or Nicaragua - where corporations take advantage of governance gaps (Alava & Calle, 2013; Allen, 2011; Andrews et al., 2021; Arif, 2019; O’Rourke & Connolly, 2003). (Bennett et al., 2022)

Bennett et al – Environmental Justice in the Ocean 9 2.3.2 Impacts and Distribution The litany of climate change impacts and knock-on effects described above are having substantial but differentiated implications for coastal communities and ocean-dependent populations around the world. Extreme weather events, coastal inundation and erosion, saltwater intrusion, marine heatwaves and HABs can have detrimental effects on economic benefits from the fisheries, aquaculture, agriculture and tourism sectors (Bindoff et al., 2019; Misana & Tilumanywa, 2019; Narita et al., 2012; Oppenheimer et al., 2019; Ritzman et al., 2018; K. E. Smith et al., 2021). Shifts in the abundance, productivity and location of fish stocks and shellfish from warming oceans and acidification are affecting fisheries jobs, revenues, and food security for many coastal populations (Cheung et al., 2010; Doney et al., 2020; Fernandes et al., 2017; Lam, Cheung, Reygondeau, et al., 2016; Narita et al., 2012; Tigchelaar et al., 2021). Rising sea levels, combined with increased storm and flooding events, are harming community infrastructure, housing and health in both rural areas and urban centers (Heberger et al., 2011; Liwenga et al., 2019; Rahimi et al., 2020; Ryan et al., 2016) and leading to forced retreat or migration away from the ocean (Ahmed & Eklund, 2021; Dannenberg et al., 2019; Dasgupta et al., 2022; Hauer, 2017; Schwerdtle et al., 2018). Climate change impacts on ecosystems can undermine provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting ecosystem services that are fundamental for human well-being (Doney et al., 2012; E. J. Nelson et al., 2013; Singh et al., 2019; Smale et al., 2019). In short, climate change threatens the human rights of coastal populations and nations to food, livelihoods, health and physical security (Ahlgren et al., 2014; Elver & Oral, 2021; Levy & Patz, 2015). There is substantial evidence that different racial, ethnic, gender, age and socio-economic groups experience the impacts of climate related changes to a greater or lesser extent (Benevolenza & DeRigne, 2019; Bindoff et al., 2019; Dankelman & Jansen, 2010; Flores, Collins, et al., 2021; N. Islam & Winkel, 2017; Thomas et al., 2019). For example, pre-existing social and structural inequalities tend to situate Black populations, women and the poor in more vulnerable positions when it comes to coastal flooding, storms, and other hazards related to climate change (Ahmed & Eklund, 2021; Gotham et al., 2018; Hardy et al., 2017). Communities and groups (e.g., small-scale fishers or Indigenous Peoples) who have a high level of resource dependence - either for livelihoods or food security - will also be more susceptible to changes to ecosystems, ecosystem services and fisheries brought on by climate change (Guillotreau et al., 2012; Lauria et al., 2018; Marushka et al., 2019). Similarly, groups with lower adaptive capacity - due to less access to financial resources, lack of alternative livelihood options, or structural barriers - will experience greater impacts (Cinner et al., 2018; Senapati & Gupta, 2017). Climate change adaptation and mitigation programs can further marginalize local populations when their needs and voices are not taken into account. Managed retreat, for instance, can have disruptive public health implications, including declining mental health, social capital, food security, water supply, and access to health care, that disproportionately affect Indigenous people (Dannenberg et al., 2019). In Bangladesh, climate adaptation projects have excluded and further marginalized women and minorities, and worsened income inequality (Sovacool, 2018). (Bennett et al., 2022)

8th of June was first declared as World Oceans Day in 1992 and designated by the United Nations in 2008. More on the day: LINK

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- Nathan J. Bennett, Juan José Alava, Caroline E. Ferguson, Jessica Blythe, Elisa Morgera, David Boyd, Isabelle M. Côté (2022). Environmental Justice in the Ocean, Working Paper, University of British Columbia, link

- photograph by Pierre Verger via

Language Decolonisation and the Radio

Approaches to language decolonisation vary but are all actions taken "to undo the social, political, and cultural effects of dominance of colonial languages" and to fight against language shift, endangerment, extinction and death. Languages and identities suppressed by linguistic imperialism are legitimated, revitalised, and maintained, linguistic inequality, manipulation, repression and cultural oppression are redressed.

Media is a strong tool for language decolonisation. In Ghana, for instance, radio record most of the programmes in Ghanaian languages. Mass media becomes "a mechanism for the storage of expressions, reservoirs and reference points for the circulation of words, phrases and discourse".

Linguistically, African language programmes on radio and TV have immensely contributed in African societies. Listeners learn a lot of things on language such as new vocabularies for modern concepts in politics, medicine, health, education, administration, economics and science from African programmes. They get new terms, idiomatic expressions, etymologies of words, proverbs, archaisms, appellations, etc. of indigenous languages (see Agyekum 2010 on radio). 

One of the major functions of the African language programmes on radio and TV talk-shows is language modernization, development and elaboration of terms to cater for most aspects of human life. Radio is one of the most powerful tools in the dissemination, interpretation and recontextualisation of discourse (see Agyekum 2000, 2010). Coined terms and phrases commonly used on African language radio programmes are picked up by the people and accepted for use outside radio.

Oral literature genres are less available in urban spaces and appear more and more on radio which somewhat replaces the "traditional village oral traditions" once provided by the elders. Both radio and television become repositories for African languages particularly when it comes to orality which was the main feature of African laguages before the advent of missionaries (Agyekum, 2018).

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-- Agyekum, K. (2018). Linguistic imperialism and language decolonisaiton in Africa through documentation and preservation. In J. Kandybowicz, T. Major, H. Torrence and P. Duncan (eds.) African Linguistics on the Prairie: Selected papers from the 45th annual conference on African linguistics. Berlin: Language Science Press, pp. 87–104.

- photograph by Pierre Verger via

Television Portrayals, Ethnic Stereotypes and Guilt Ratings

Abstract: An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans increase the likelihood that whites will make negative social perception judgments of an African-American (but not a white) target person. Forty white subjects were exposed to comedy skits featuring stereotypical or netural portrayals of African-American characters. Subjects then read a vignette describing an incident in which a college student was allegedly assaulted by his rommate. In half of the conditions, the alleged offender was assumed to be white; in the other half he was assumed to be African-American. 

Subjects rated the likelihood that the alleged offender was guilty of the assault. Guilt ratings of the white target did not differ significantly between the stereotypical and the neutral comedy skit conditions. In contrast, guilt ratings of the African-American target were higher in the stereotypical comedy skit condition than in the neutral comedy skit condition. (Ford, 1997)

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- Ford, T. E. (1997). Effects of Stereotypical Television Portrayals of African-Americans on Person Perception. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60(3), 266-275.
- photograph by Pierre Verger via

Gazing up at the poorest of the poor. Pierre Verger

“I started traveling, not so much driven by a desire to do ethnographic research or journalistic reports, but rather as a result of the need to distance myself, to free myself and escape the environment in which I had been living until then, whose prejudices and rules of conduct did not make me happy.” 

Pierre Verger, 1982

Pierre Edouard Leopold Verger (1902-1996) was a French photographer and researcher born in Paris into a bourgeois family. In 1932, he discovered photography and travelling, a combination that changed his life. Verger travelled around the world and, after disembarking in Brazil, decided to stay there (via) 

Verger traveled extensively during his long career, but his central focus was the exploration and visual depiction of the enduring continuities linking peoples and cultures of West Africa and the African Diaspora. Over the course of five decades, he took an estimated 65,000 black-and-white photographs with his Rolleiflex camera, depicting individuals and groups in humanistic, light-drenched portraits. In his approach to photography, he placed great emphasis on documenting the beauty of the human form as encountered in scenes of everyday life. In large part, his intention was to counter racism and all-too-prevalent derogatory representations of Africans and peoples of African-descent in the Americas. (via)

Verger turned toward his subjects, his photographs differed from etchnographical approaches "based on measured gestures and the obscene gaze directed at the object being photographed". In fact, he had an aversion to voyeurism and made sure that even when photographing the poorest of the poor, they maintained their personality and dignity. He captured them from an ascending camera angle which reflected his own gaze, i.e. gazing up at them and giving them a heroic aura (via).

Unlike the friends also ethnologists from the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, Roger Bastide and Alfred Métraux, who often gave him their texts to correct, Verger’s approach was deliberately undetached. He was the opposite of an aloof observer; he never used the lens of his camera as a partition between the observed object and the subject being interpreted. Moreover, his almost obsessive attempts to escape the middle-class milieu, and to subject himself to extreme situations, prompted him to always see himself as a part of his own experimental arrangement. There was method in his empathy. He never saw sympathy and shock as obstacles; they were the motivating forces of his understanding that enabled him to place himself in the position of the other; to overcome ethnic, social and epistemological barriers, and to experience in this way – recalling Rimbaud – oneself as the other: “To be honest, I’m only marginally interested in ethnography. I don’t want to study people as if they were just beetles or exotic plants. On my journeys, what I like is living with people and learning their different lifestyles. That’s because I’ve always been interested in what I never was, or in what I could be with others.” (via)

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photographs via and via and via

Black Awareness Day

On 20th of November, Black Awareness Day is celebrated in Brazil in order to make sure the journey and cirumstances of the black community's ancestors are not forgotten and their contribution to both the country and society are recognised. 20th of November was chosen because it marks the death of Zumbi dos Palmares (born 1655), a Brazilian of Kongo origin and one of the pioneers fighting slavery (via).



After more than 300 years of slavery, Brazil abolished slavery only in 1888, it was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to do so despite its mostly black and mixed population which again was and is a result of Portuguese settlers having been primarily male and often seeking out African or indigenous femals as mates. Brazil was also the largest importer of African slaves "bringing in seven times as many African slaves to the country, compared to the United States" (via).



"Miscegenation and intermarriage suggest fluid race relations and, unlike the United States or South Africa, there were no racially-specific laws or policies, such as on segregation or apartheid, throughout the twentieth century. For these reasons, Brazilians thought of their country as a "racial democracy" from as early as the 1930s until recent years. They believed that racism and racial discrimination were minimal or non-existent in Brazilian society in contrast to the other multiracial societies in the world. A relatively narrow view of discrimination previously recognized only explicit manifestations of racism or race-based laws as discriminatory, thus only countries like South Africa and the United States were seen as truly racist. Moreover, there was little formal discussion of race in Brazilian society, while other societies were thought to be obsessed with race and racial difference." (via)



"At the time of the abolition, Brazil's population was mostly black or mixed race until the 1930s, when Brazil encouraged and received a large number of European immigrants as it sought to find new sources of labour. In the context of the scientific racism of the time, which deemed a non-white population as problematic to its future development, Brazilian officials explicitly encouraged European immigration while blocking Chinese and African immigrants. The growing population of European origin was also expected to mix with the non-white, further "whitening" the Brazilian population." (via)



"More than just a celebration, it is a day to think about the position that Black people have in society then and now. The past generations who have suffered (and still suffer) through racist acts, despite the abolition of slavery in 1888, discrimination still continues. It’s a day dedicated to fight racism and defend Black people’s rights and respect in society." (via).



photographs by Pierre Verger via and via and via and via and via