READ: Sea Reflections: How is it to be connected through water and sea? (Venetia Kantsa)

Political and Legal Anthropology Review

Venetia Kantsa

American University of Beirut

The Floating Laboratory Of Action and Theory at Sea that was launched in summer 2018 on the island of Lesvos, Northeastern Aegean, Greece posed this question among many others. The emergence of FLOATS during a period of growing interest among social scientists in ocean, seawater, flows, and tides called for an interdisciplinary approach and prompted us to reconsider common and (un)common topics from another perspective. As an anthropologist of kinship my perspective is often related to soil, blood, descent, alliance, siblinghood, family, household, spiritual affinity, exchanges of goods (bridewealth, dowry, inheritance), substances (milk, blood, sperm, oocyte womb), and names. How could sea encounters motivate an anthropologist with these interests to reconsider her perspective?