Our Mother Ocean tells the story of the Global Fishermen's Movement from its beginnings in Southern India to its crucial role in the global movement against neoliberal capitalism. In a time of profound economic and ecological crisis, Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Monica Chilese offer a long-overdue reminder that the ocean is an integral terrain of struggle for the preservation of dignity and life.
The authors draw attention to the polyvalent functions of the ocean as a source of food, medicine, raw materials, biodiversity and culture; and also as a site of human labour, livelihood, and culture threatened by industrial fishing and tourism that distorts landscapes, depletes fish stocks, and destroys natural barriers for the protection against climate disaster. Their perspective is both practical and theoretical, exploring the related issues of globalization, development, work, and food, and illuminates strategic connections between those struggling for social justice in the global North and South.
For humanity and against capital, Dalla Costa and Chilese remind us, it is time for love and respect for our mother Ocean.
Industry Reviews
"This book about the world's fishermen movement provides us with new insight about a phenomenon that is completely ignored, not only by the mainstream media, but also by independent researchers. Yet the questions it raises about the safeguarding of resources, the right to live, and the satisfaction of needs are strategic. Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Monica Chilese have achieved a great and highly enjoyable book."--Claudio Albertani, History Department, Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de Mexico" "Through overfishing, industrial aquaculture, and poisoning, capitalism is killing ocean life--upon which all of life on Earth depends--but the people who are most directly threatened by this destruction are fighting back, and the rest of us urgently need to join their struggles. That is the story that unfolds in this remarkably detailed but compact book by Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Monica Chilese. To date, awareness of the killing has been mostly limited to the environmental movement. At the same time, awareness of the ways in which capitalism has been slowly destroying traditional communities of those who live by, on, and with the seas has been mostly limited to the peoples of those communities, and in the case of indigenous fishing communities, a few anthropologists. This book not only illuminates the interrelationships between these two patterns of destruction, but also highlights the emergence of a worldwide movement of resistance on the part of some of those most directly threatened." --Harry Cleaver, author of Reading Capital Politically "In this lyrical text, two political scholars--feminist Mariarosa Dalla Costa and ecologist Monica Chilese--contest the global neoliberal assault on life through the prism of the sea, with its threatened species and courageous fisher peoples. Their impeccable research will bring validation, inspiration, and empowerment to the worldwide struggle of communities for food sovereignty and sustainable, life-affirming cultures." --Ariel Salleh, University of Sydney, author of Ecofeminism as Politics and Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice "There is no apocalyptic randiness in this amazing account of horror. Instead we get a call as rigorous as it is passionate for what we all need to do. Now. The authors distill for the reader the almost overwhelming documentation they use in their very solid exploration of the subject, covering almost every aspect of it, and they share their insights in an elegant and direct style. The world fishers movement, brilliantly described here, the biggest fishers movement in history, begins to do for Mother Ocean what Via Campesina-- the biggest farmers movement in history--is doing for Mother Earth. In resisting the new enclosures, hundreds of millions of people are thus attempting to stop the devastating activity of corporate capital, in order to sustain their ways of life and ours. They need both our awareness and our action. This is the book we need for both." --Gustavo Esteva, author of Grassroots Post-Modernism " "The emergence of [the] fisher as part of the movement against neoliberal globalization is beautifully understood in this book. I applaud the authors' passionate portrayal of workers on the sea as an organic part of those of us who wish to protect Nature against the rapacious excesses of capitalism."--George Katsiaficas, activist and author of Asia's Unknown Uprisings, Vols. 1 and 2, and The Subversion of Politics "This book is indeed a timely one. With climate change and the exhaustion of natural resources, patriarchal capitalist civilization seems to have come to an end. The authors remind us that Mother Earth and Mother Ocean are indeed the sources of all life on our planet. Without Earth, no life; without oceans and water, no life. The authors argue that the vital connection between humans and the sea, between humans and the earth has been disrupted by capitalist and patriarchal exploitation. The victims of this exploitation, among others, are the small coastal fishermen who lose their livelihood. However, the authors do not stop at analyzing their problems, but show how people everywhere are fighting against this destruction. I warmly recommend this book to all who are concerned about the future of life on this planet." -- Maria Mies, author of Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale and coauthor of The Subsistence Perspective with Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen "
