Our new paper was recently published online in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.
Luke Fairbanks, Lisa M. Campbell, Noëlle Boucquey, & Kevin St. Martin. 2017. Assembling Enclosure: Reading Marine Spatial Planning for Alternatives. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2017.1345611.
If you want to skip straight to paper itself, this link here provides full access for a limited time! If you can’t get access through that link, please feel free to email Luke and request a PDF.
Otherwise, here is a brief summary: In this paper we use the case of U.S. marine spatial planning (MSP) to explore the concept of enclosure (more on enclosure and MSP). As part of our work, we have been interested in how MSP can provide opportunities for coastal communities, environments, and other actors to intervene and shape planning and management offshore. Where many spatial environmental governance strategies have been closely linked to enclosure and its often undesirable impacts, in this paper we try to read MSP a bit differently. Using assemblage theory, we explore how enclosure is and is not happening through MSP, and how MSP might (perhaps paradoxically) offer productive or alternative paths for the people and places often considered disempowered by conventional enclosure processes. With its many moving parts, MSP is an interesting case to think about through assemblage. We argue that this sort of approach to governance and enclosure might help open us up to innovative or alternative arrangements at sea and elsewhere — and alternative and progressive futures for communities and environments.
Be sure to check out our Research and Research Products to pages to learn more about our work!
