photo Sea-Water Amplification (SWA) 2023, Atlantic Ocean, Azores

Diary entry: The fluid movements of water worlds. To move smoothly beyond the boundaries of Earth’s language.

Water script is a set of knowledge, gestures and epistemological tools that can be extracted from seas, oceans and other marine-aquatic environments. Water script also forms a way in which said knowledge can open up new ways of thinking about our world that are not entirely possible with those from an earthly perspective.

Each gesture of water script offers a different view of the kinds of knowledge that reveal an ocean-oriented approach. From scientific knowledge to knowledge embodied. Because of the flexible and variable composition of water, each different formulation of water allows for different physical encounters.

Diary entry: When planning a trip, there is often or almost always more than one option.

How does a person who not only thinks with and from the oceans, but also across the oceans, recall the importance of the ocean as a space that opens and closes the future?

Diary entry: there is something about sounds below the surface that helps me tune vibrations outside of linear time.

Despite the importance of observation, knowledge of the ocean is never simply a matter of direct observation. Creation and use of epistemological tools opens relationships between species, environments, temporalities and diverse geopolitical and gender materialities.

Meeting, surprise and fascination…

How to interpret the world’s vortex? Waves can be the oracular forms and forces that can capture today’s climatological and political marine changes, as ocean (and social) processes increasingly pile into each other and run forward and backward.

Repeating waves can keep memories alive. They can also mix with unexpected futures.

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Notes: The shift from case studies to kin studies requires those writing histories of place to consider the ongoing, co-constitutive, rooted, and flexible nature of place and our relationships to it (Vanessa Watts). Transregional environmental kin studies are formed through protocols of attention, listening, and noticing at many interconnected scales (Anja Kanngieser & Zoe Todd).

These work in progress studies labeled “Kin studies” are a companion (and guide) in how we can deepen our care and respect for the family of oceans, plants, rivers, mountains, animals and others who live with us in this lush, life-giving, planetary tangle of relationships.