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“Draw the sea…”: Children’s representations of ocean connectivity in Fiji and New Caledonia

  • Elodie Fache
  • Susanna Piovano
  • Alisi Soderberg
  • Malakai Tuiono
  • Léa Riera
  • Gilbert David
  • Matthias Kowasch
  • Simonne Pauwels
  • Annette Breckwoldt
  • Stéphanie M. Carrière
  • Catherine Sabinot
Show all 11 authors

Abstract

In the South Pacific region, marine territories and resources play a crucial role for local communities. Children engage with these territories and resources from an early age onwards. As the next ocean stewards, they are a stakeholder group whose understandings of ocean connectivity and fisheries should be given serious consideration in decision-making processes towards the sustainable use and management of coastal seas. This paper analyses 290 children’s drawings from Fiji and New Caledonia, created in 2019 in spontaneous response to the instruction: “Draw the sea and what you and others do in the sea”. Exploring the webs of connections with and within the sea revealed by these children’s drawings and their own interpretations leads us to discuss children’s representations of the sea: (1) beyond a land-sea compartmentation, (2) as a locus of both exploitation and conservation of marine life, and (3) as a ‘place-full’ space connecting human and more-than-human realms.

Cite this activity

Fache E., Piovano S., Soderberg A., Tuiono M., Riera L., David G., Kowasch M., Pauwels S., Breckwoldt A., Carrière S.M. and Sabinot C. (2022) “Draw the sea…”: Children’s representations of ocean connectivity in Fiji and New Caledonia. AMBIO. 10.1007/s13280-022-01777-1

Details

Research topics
Date 23.09.2022
Journal AMBIO
Open Access Open Access (open)
Open Access Status Open Access (open)
Eprints_link https://cris.leibniz-zmt.de/id/eprint/5020
Peer-Reviewed

Research Spectrum

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