Tag Archives: SteveMentz

Week 4: Deterritorializing is the Key to Harmony

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All humans are separated by land: continents, countries, and regions. We came up with this idea of imaginary lines that separate us from wars fought long before many of us can remember. For example, California declared independence from Mexico in 1846, then later became a U.S. State after signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1948. All of this to say, land separates us, but the oceans connect us. We are so focused on our disconnection from each other because of imaginary lines that we forget that this planet is 70% ocean, with scientists sometimes calling it the interconnected global ocean. Interconnected. And maybe, as Steve Mentz suggests in his “Deterritorializing Preface,” if we deterritorialize ourselves with terrestrial language, we can become interconnected as well, just like the oceans.

Mentz offers the readers seven different terrestrial words with seven different oceanic replacements: field becomes current, ground becomes water, progress becomes flow, state becomes ship, landscape becomes seascape, clarity becomes distortion, and horizon becomes horizon (Mentz xv-xvii). These are just a few examples in which we can detach ourselves from land-bound vocabulary, but I wonder if taking this a step further (or, as Mentz might suggest, deeper) could help humans stop having such polarizing views ion each other. If humans were to deterritorialize themselves, not just through a means of language, but as a means of differentiation across peoples, could we be one step closer to harmony?

Mentz concludes with this bit of wisdom: “The blue humanities name an ocean-infused way to reframe our shared cultural history. Breaking up the Anthropocene means reimagining the anthropogenic signatures of today’s climactic disasters as a dynamic openings as well as catastrophic ruptures” (xviii). I note how Mentz writes, “shared cultural history,” as if every person on this earth shares cultural history with each other. Which, he’s not wrong—there is one thing that connects us all, no matter what imaginary lines we draw: the ocean. So perhaps, if we take a cue from Mentz, we might finally begin to find a sense of harmony between each other.

Power of Blue Humanities

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In the “Deterritorializing Preface,” Steve Mentz suggests replacing “field” with “current.” At first this may seem small and hold little meaning, but it changes how we think about knowledge and ideas. A “field” is something that usually means stable, rooted in one place, and often controlled. When I think of the word “field,” I think of a piece of land that’s fenced off or a “field of study.” Both of these appear to be pretty defined with not much movement. By using the word “current” instead, we can think about knowledge as something that is moving and shifting instead of stuck in the same place. 

A current is always moving. It goes in all directions and connects one place to another. The text asks, “What if instead we redescribe the adventures of thinking as currents, as a rate of flow and change?” This quote really stood out to me because it suggests that knowledge is placed into specific categories, and the word “current” allows ideas to circulate between people, cultures, and environments. Knowledge is something that should never be stuck or kept in one place. The movement of knowledge is what is important. We would never be able to advance or grow if everything we discovered had to stay put. 

Just like the ocean, knowledge is something that no one can own or control. By describing knowledge as something that is “current,” it allows us to see that knowledge is always changing and moving from place to place. Describing it as a “field” doesn’t work because knowledge is something that has no limit and will forever be growing. Knowledge becomes even more meaningful when it flows from person to person. This means we should expect ideas to change over time, and we should learn to see value in motion rather than in stability. 

Replacing the word “field” with “current” does more than just change a word. It gives us a whole new perspective on learning, history, and even politics. Instead of looking for straight answers or permanent solutions, the metaphor of “current” teaches us to look for connections and that motion is good. It means we are growing and adapting to what is new. 

Mer-interpretations

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“The mermaid is a hybrid beast.” Unlike other forms of mythological hybridity, humans have split crossroads when it comes to interpreting these beasts. Do they impart knowledge? Are they friendly? Deadly? Sexual? Unassuming? Just curious? In an interesting analysis, Steve Mentz finds that interpreting shape-shifting clouds “essentially follows a hybridizing theory of interpreting forms of water… about how vaporous forms assume multiple meanings… The challenge is devising a language to understand their forms”. As hybridized water beings, mermaids are vaporous. That is, they are vague, and lacking in clarity. Like hazy clouds, interpretation of mermaids shape-shift throughout time and place. Their soaked and shrouded dwellings cultivate a sense of mystery. We humans are apt to judge. Clothes, cars, houses. We gain a sense of constancy knowing what kind of person we encounter based on their address. So, an ability to construct mermaids into a coercing presence comes from their watery lodgings; able to assume multiple meanings. The church can depict them demonically or hyper-sexualized, myths can represent beings to overcome or avoid, pop culture can take their voices. These representations help push an agenda that is difficult to object when we are wrestling to grasp an interpretation of water, let alone an interpretation of these hydrobeings. Furthermore, examining Mentz’s grappling with the interpretation of the forms of water, he states: “The challenge is devising a language to understand their forms.” Mentz has faced this challenge head on in his preface to his book Ocean. He impels to manipulate the use of terracentral language: changing the word field to current, or state to ship. When we use these words, among others, we stop tethering ourselves to land. Water, in all its forms, becomes less threatening and more of an everyday interaction. This change of language changes our relationship to planetary water, consequently, changing our relationship to the beings that inhabit it. I can’t help wondering, what our merbeing myths would hold now if we had the relationship we have with water today, hundreds or even thousands of years ago.