For a very long time, human beings have looked at the Ocean simply as a background space for human activity, and we have rarely tried to understand it as something more than that. On maps, we divided the sea according to our own standards and gave it names that made sense only from a human point of view. Throughout thousands of years of history, the Ocean was mainly used as a route or pathway that helped people achieve their own goals, such as travel, trade, or exploration. However, this way of thinking limits the vast and complex space of the Ocean to something that exists only within the boundaries of human vision. It ignores and even erases the independence, depth, and long history that the ocean itself has always possessed.
In relation to this problem, Eric Paul Roorda, in his essay The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics, argues that the human habit of defining and restricting the Ocean is actually a product of an anthropocentric, or human-centered, worldview. By pointing this out, Roorda invites us to reconsider our narrow perspective and to reflect on how we have been understanding the sea. Roorda describes humans as essentially land-based creatures and intentionally chooses to write the word “Ocean” with a capital O. Through this linguistic choice, he encourages readers to recognize the Ocean as an equal partner in the relationship between humans and the natural world. His focus on language reminds us that the words we choose can shape the way we think and the way we value different parts of our world.
Therefore, this essay will explore how Roorda’s linguistic strategies help break down the anthropocentric viewpoint that humans have long taken for granted. It will also examine how this shift in language allows us to see the Ocean as a space with its own history, identity, and agency. By analyzing Roorda’s sentence structures and vocabulary choices, I aim to show how his writing encourages readers to change the way they think, and how language itself becomes a tool for understanding the world in a deeper way. In addition, this essay will consider how Roorda’s linguistic transformation reconstructs the dominant power relationship between humans and the Ocean, leading us to recognize once again that the two are mutually dependent and deeply connected.
Roorda explains the purpose of his essay by saying that he hopes “to avoid that natural bias predominating among our terrestrial species and replace it with a steady focus on the Ocean and on events that take place offshore” (Roorda, p.1). In this moment, he does not simply use the common word “human” to refer to people. Instead, he chooses the expression “terrestrial species.” This linguistic strategy encourages readers to rethink and reposition the status of human beings. Normally, when we use the word “Human,” it gives us the feeling that humans are unique creatures who exist above or outside other categories of life. However, by defining humans as a “terrestrial species,” Roorda shakes the foundation of this assumption and asks us to let go of a sense of privilege that we may have taken for granted.
Through this choice of wording, he redefines humans not as beings standing outside of nature or ruling over the sea from an elevated position, but as equal participants who exist in a mutual relationship with the Ocean. In other words, Roorda’s terminology challenges the hierarchy that humans have built between themselves and the sea, and demonstrates his intention to place both entities on equal ground. By calling humans a “terrestrial species,” he emphasizes that human life is limited to land and that our perspective is shaped and restricted by this fact. He also uses the word “predominating” to show that such biased thinking has been dominant for a long time and has continued almost automatically through long-standing habits.
This act of naming does more than simply change where humans are placed in the world. It also raises questions about the limitations of the way humans interpret and understand reality. Roorda reveals that human perception is never neutral or universal, even though we often assume it to be so. Just as Roorda’s term “terrestrial species” suggests that human viewpoints arise from life on land, Donna Haraway also argues in her essay that all knowledge and perspectives are shaped by a person’s specific environment and position. In Situated Knowledges, she writes, “I am arguing for politics and epistemologies of location, positioning, and situating, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims. These are claims on people’s lives” (Donna, p. 589).
Haraway’s argument closely connects with Roorda’s linguistic strategy. Both scholars emphasize that the way humans see the world is determined by their past experiences and conditions. Because humans have lived their entire history on land, it is natural that they developed a “terrestrialism,” a land-centered way of thinking. Therefore, Roorda’s use of selective vocabulary to reposition humans can be understood as an attempt to practice Haraway’s idea of “epistemologies of location,” but from a specifically ocean-centered perspective.
Ultimately, Roorda’s naming technique is not just a simple word choice but a critical intervention into the way humans understand their own viewpoint. His linguistic strategy pushes humans to recognize that they are no longer the absolute interpreters of the world, but beings with limited and situated perspectives. In other words, he reconstructs the relationship between humans and the Sea not as observer and observed, but as two relational subjects who coexist.
Furthermore, this linguistic re-positioning becomes the foundation for understanding Roorda’s next strategy which is writing “Ocean” with a capital letter. Without first revealing the limits and biases of human perspective, it would be difficult for readers to accept the Ocean as an independent entity with its own agency and history.
After redefining the position of humans as a “terrestrial species,” Roorda continues his project by redefining the Ocean not as a simple natural background but as a unique entity with its own history. In his essay, he states, “To capitalize Ocean is to challenge the conventional wisdom that the seas can be taken for granted. They cannot” (Roorda, pp. 3–4). By using the word “challenge,” Roorda clearly shows that his linguistic transformation is meant to resist long-standing assumptions based on human-centered thinking. Even though he changes only one letter in the word ocean, this shift allows us to perceive the sea in a completely different way. When we write the word with a capital letter, Ocean, we begin to see it as a proper noun, and this linguistic shift helps us understand what Roorda means when he says that “the Ocean has a history” (Roorda, p.1). Instead of reducing the sea to a space used only for human needs such as trade or navigation, the capitalized Ocean becomes a space that holds its own agency, one that changes, moves, and interacts with human history while also developing independently.
Furthermore, the capitalization of Ocean works as a form of resistance against the human habit of simplifying the sea’s complex ecosystems and deep histories. By naming it as a proper noun, Roorda suggests that the long tradition of dividing the sea into seven parts, known as “the Seven Seas,” is no longer acceptable. In other words, the sea cannot truly be divided or easily named according to human convenience. It exists as an independent and continuous whole. This linguistic shift encourages readers to reflect on the ways humans have interpreted and treated the sea based only on their own perspectives. It also pushes us to reconsider the sea as a constantly changing, richly layered environment with its own ecological rhythms.
This perspective is supported by Leposa and Knutsson in their essay Framing Matters for Ontological Politics of the Ocean. They explain, “While epistemology denotes how we understand the world and ontology describes the existence of the world, the way political practices shape a particular ontology and how different realities interact with each other can be embraced by the term political ontology” (Leposa & Knutsson, p. 753). Their argument emphasizes that the way we frame and describe the sea directly influences how the sea is defined. In other words, the sea can appear in completely different forms depending on how humans name it, narrate it, and structure it through language. This discussion shows how powerful human language can be in constructing reality and why it is important to question and rethink the linguistic frameworks that have shaped our understanding of the sea.
For this reason, Roorda’s decision to capitalize Ocean becomes especially meaningful. It demonstrates that language does not only define and describe objects in the world but also shapes the perspective from which we see them. When we begin to write the sea as Ocean, we naturally start to view it as something much broader, more complex, and beyond full human control or explanation.
In conclusion, Roorda’s capitalization strategy breaks the long-established habit of framing the ocean within human linguistic systems and urges us to read the Ocean as an independent subject. This reframing moves us away from the idea that the sea exists only to serve human purposes and helps us recognize that the Ocean has its own rhythms, movements, and history. His linguistic shift functions as a critique of human-centered worldviews and opens a new possibility for understanding the sea not as an object but as a subject with whom humans must renegotiate their relationship.
Roorda’s use of the term “terrestrial species” and his decision to capitalize the word Ocean represent more than simple linguistic choices. They function as a critical challenge that shakes the foundation of how humans understand the world. Through this linguistic shift, Roorda removes humans from the imagined center of nature and places them on the same level as the sea, encouraging readers to recognize the Ocean not as a passive background or a resource, but as a subject with its own unique history and agency. This transformation in language exposes how deeply human-centered thinking has shaped our perspectives and reminds us that our ways of seeing the world are always shaped and limited by the words we use. Roorda’s strategy also invites us to view the sea as something that cannot be simplified, divided, or easily controlled according to human purposes, offering a new perspective in which the Ocean can be understood as an independent and meaningful presence.
Furthermore, Roorda’s work shows that rethinking the Ocean is closely connected to rethinking humanity itself. Humans are no longer portrayed as owners or controllers of the sea, but as beings who share and co-create the world alongside it, forming histories through continuous interactions. His linguistic intervention plays a central role in restoring this relational way of seeing, encouraging readers to reconsider the connections between humans and the natural world. The capitalized Ocean is therefore not just a typographical change, but a symbolic gesture that represents a shift in thought toward reimagining the relationship between humans and nature. Ultimately, Roorda’s approach becomes an important starting point for reading the sea differently, reflecting on the limits of human perception, and fostering a broader and more inclusive understanding of the world around us.