Pathways to Decoloniality and Interculturality in Ocean Literacy

Abstract

Ocean Literacy has been gaining relevance within the scope of the global environmental agenda, especially since the proclamation of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). A sensitive and challenging point in the Ocean Decade and its strategies for promoting Ocean Literacy has been the dialogue with indigenous and traditional knowledge systems. Amidst the tensions and violence inherent in colonial modernity, this dialogue tends to reproduce hierarchies of knowledge. The hegemony of modern science and its corresponding education system, rooted in a colonialist way of being and knowing, has been one of the central drivers of the destructive way of inhabiting the world. Thus, any serious strategy to address complex global socioecological problems needs to find ways to overcome this colonialist legacy and move towards transdisciplinary and intercultural approaches that promote cognitive justice.In light of the above, this proposal aims to deepen understanding of decoloniality and interculturality, mobilizing such perspectives to cast new insights regarding the conception and educational practices for promoting Ocean Literacy. The research will be conducted based on a systematic literature review, as well as educational experiences within the research and art collective Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF). This collective was co-founded by researcher Sharon Stein from the Department of Education at the University of British Columbia, located in Vancouver, Canada. In a second phase, aiming to reflect on the opportunities and obstacles to advancing towards decoloniality and interculturality in the global agenda for the promotion of Ocean Literacy, online interviews will be conducted with key national leaders in what is known as Ocean Literacy- prioritizing countries of the Global South. It is hoped that this will contribute to the development and dissemination of transdisciplinary scientific approaches sensitive to ecological issues and the multiple forms of violence and polarization caused by the historical process of colonization.