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This paper examines the sea as a metonym for visualising the Caribbean island experience. This paper argues that islanders' relations with the sea are maintained through a double condition of connection and isolation, alienation and familiarity. This paper's theoretical position is informed by 'transinsularism', an approach that addresses how insular identities are constituted in relation to other island spaces. This paper's argument is contextualised with historical and ethnographic material on the island of Culebra, an offshore municipality of Puerto Rico. The historical material addresses the colonisation of Culebra in the 1880s by interests of the Spanish Crown, the occupation of the island by the US Navy and its liberation. The sea features at the foreground of these processes. This paper concludes that islanders maintain a sense of specific insular regard while self-consciously engaged in multiple network-generating networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent literature on “marine sovereignty” encourages to consider the ways of management and governance of the Pacific Ocean from a new perspective, in order to face the ecological crisis and acknowledge the coexistence of different ontologies. In this paper I aim to convey the density and the poly-chrony that characterize the aquatic ontology of the Belema people, the inhabitants of the Belep Islands (Kanaky New Caledonia). For the Belema, the ocean is more than a surface to cross or the source of important economic resources. The ocean is a dense space: visible and invisible intertwine in its opaque depth; past and present, life and death mingle; human and non-human meet. The aquatic geography (a hydrography, punctuated by underwater villages and paths), the genealogies (in which the first ancestors are marine animals) and the continuities and correspondences between aquatic and terrestrial beings reveal the force of the ocean. It shapes the Belema society and contributes to making it a more-than-human society.

Maritime anthropology federates, since the 1970s, numerous research studies on coastal societies. Emphasizing the singularity of the experience of life at sea, maritime anthropology particularly leaned until now on the comparative ethnography of fishing communities in oceanic environments. Societies living close to estuaries and coastal rivers also feel the influence of the sea under various forms, both direct - as the intimacy with the aquatic environment - and indirect. But the place and role of anthropological research addressing this specific experience in the development of the field of the maritime anthropology remains uncertain.Drawing on the comparison of two field studies -fishing activities in the Amazonian estuary of Oyapock and socio-environmental conflicts on the coast of Finistère (France) - this article shows the multiplicity and the changing forms of presence of the sea in coastal, riparian and rural societies. In the context of rapid and complex anthropogenic change, the margins of the maritime space appear as a heuristic viewpoint to explore the material and immaterial transformations, which affect the connections with marine ecosystems and seascapes.The article raises new questions and avenues as regards to the scope and future directions of maritime anthropology, emphasizing the need for an overtaking of the land-sea dialectic and enhanced reflexivity of the observers. To do so, the authors suggest a systemic and phenomenological approach of the sea and the marine element, which in such a perspective should be addressed as a continuous, dynamic and unstable system extending beyond coastal societies.

Anthropological ideas of the maritime leadership development are discussed at the integral level of the vocational preparation of seafarers and skilled port workers in the paper. Development of the maritime leader's personality, based anthropologically by applying the universal vocational preparation, is revealed regarding vocational schizophrenia, division of theory and practice, emphasizing of physical functions by ignoring the valuably psycho-emotional activity, the whole of personality's principles at work, harmony of the maritime and continental self-concept, formalism of the EU conventions and the needs of the labor market, higher education as a universal vocational preparation, defragmentation of the vocational preparation, negative effects of the environment and the development of resistance to them. The type of the research is theoretically descriptive. The main methods, such as analysis, interpretation, heuristic analysis and synthesis, and methodological principles, such as existentialism, cognitive psychology and the paradigm of universal education, were used in the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seawater has occupied an ambiguous place in anthropological categories of 'nature' and 'culture.' Seawater as nature appears as potentiality of form and uncontainable flux; it moves faster than culture-with culture frequently figured through land-based metaphors-even as culture seeks to channel water's (nature's) flow. Seawater as culture manifests as a medium of pleasure, sustenance, travel, disaster. I argue that, although seawater's qualities in early anthropology were portrayed impressionistically, today technical, scientific descriptions of water's form prevail. For example, processes of globalization-which may also be called 'oceanization'-are often described as 'currents,''flows,' and 'circulations.' Examining sea-set ethnography, maritime anthropologies, and contemporary social theory, I propose that seawater has operated as a 'theory machine' for generating insights about human cultural organization. I develop this argument with ethnography from the Sargasso Sea and in the Sea Islands. I conclude with a critique of appeals to water's form in social theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeology in Europe has changed a great deal over the last 25 years and these changes have certainly affected maritime archaeology. As such they also define the practical skills that are needed. On the one hand of course, unlike other branches of European archaeology, maritime archaeology still has a major preoccupation with a well-funded ‘treasure-hunting’ industry and no lack of ill-defined and ill-considered project initiatives. High ethical standards are therefore necessary and the public debate should continue. But within the structure of archaeology and its management at large, maritime archaeology should also show what its major contributions can be. It can only do so if sufficiently trained personnel are available. It is against this background that the Maritime Archaeology Programme at SDU in Esbjerg is being shaped. This paper reviews developments in the field and outlines the approach to education developed at SDU in response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of archaeological sites of maritime nature started in Egypt more than a century ago, with the discovery of the Dahshur boats (Haldane ) and the ancient harbour of Pharos (Jondet ); however, education in maritime and underwater archaeology in Egypt is still in its infancy. This paper will look at the development of maritime archaeology in Egypt as a scientific discipline and the progress achieved to date in providing Egyptian archaeologists with education and training in aspects of maritime archaeology and underwater cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the emergence and dispersion of the eastern Mediterranean fishing village as evidenced by the submerged Neolithic settlements off the Carmel Coast in Israel. Features of a model which predicts the timing, location and form of early eastern Mediterranean fishing villages; Description of the settlements; Effect of the development of the water-well technology on 9th millennium BP populations.