Embracing Tensions in Research, or: Why I Can’t Answer the Question, “What is the ocean?”

Picture of beach
Photo: Pixabay | Pexels

Tension. What springs to mind when you think of tension? Images of frustration and stress, awkwardness and anxiety might arise; or those unpleasant moments that you only remember right before you fall asleep, situations you may not want to revisit, interactions you’d rather forget. As someone who suffers from anxiety and PTSD on a daily basis, it seems counterintuitive for me to argue that tension can be good. But I think it can be.

“I think the beauty of tension is in its impermanence ‒ it pushes us to repair, reform, and reconcile. Tension is productive: in its dissolution there is resolution.”

Soli Levi, PGIS researcher

There are tensions in my research: some hang heavy over my head, some fizzle out before they have a chance to crystallise, some I can see from miles away and some are a complete surprise. There are too many, really, for one person to address; it is important to pick one’s battles. Today I dwell on a tension that might seem absurd to some and profound to others: the question of what the ocean is. Before you start to wonder why a marine scientist doesn’t know the answer to this glaringly obvious question, hear me out.

One of the core tenets of the social sciences is anti-realism, a pushback against the positivist belief that there is an absolute, objective truth to what something is. Anti-realism, in contrast, posits that things are what they are because we say so. A realist, therefore, might believe that there is one single, immutable definition of the ocean. An anti-realist, however, might argue that the ocean is what it is because we say so, and this truth is different from person to person and place to place. Though I work in the realm of the social sciences, and though I wholeheartedly agree that the ocean holds different meanings for different people, this anti-realist claim just doesn’t sit right with me.

The Ocean´s own Independent Existence and Agency

If we believe that something ‒ trees, soil, wildlife, rivers, oceans ‒ is what it is because we say so, then we rob that something of its own independent existence and agency and hoard the power of bestowing meaning to ourselves. This is a shockingly anthropocentric perspective in an age in which we cannot afford to be anthropocentric any longer. How can we hold opposing notions ‒ the undeniable agency and meaning that things have without depending on us to give it to them, and the rejection of objective, absolutist truths to what they are ‒ simultaneously? Imagine holding a magnet in each hand, bringing them closer together as they repel each other: the space in between, the space that wouldn’t be there if not for this tension, is where the magic happens.

Let us return to the question of what the ocean is. The concept of relationality might help us navigate the tension in this space. Defining the ocean by its relation to us allows it to mean different things to different people while respecting that it has an agency outside of our relationship to it. Note that this won’t solve the problem of whose relationships and definitions are prioritised and why (that is a can of tense worms for another day). It is a start, though, to resolving a tension that feeds into sources of environmental, political, and resource conflicts around the world.

The Role of our Emotions

We can now begin tracing this tension back to my research. If we want to think about the ocean relationally, to define it and manage it as such, it is important to understand how and why we relate to it in a particular way. Relations are bound up with emotions; put another way, there is no relation without emotion. Recognising the role of emotions in our relations to the ocean; the role of these relations in our definitions of the ocean; and the role of these definitions in how we manage the oceans ‒ this is the stuff of better futures.

And this is why I can’t answer the question, “what is the ocean?

Soli Levi

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