Research pick: Sailing free in the Blue Pacific - "Blue Pacific, polluted ocean"

A powerful discourse is breaking on the shores of the islands of the Pacific as the nations within this vast region use the language of the Blue Pacific to express their solidarity with each other as well as their sovereignty, especially in the face of climate change.

Margaret Jolly of the School of Culture, History and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University in Canberra, suggests that in this discourse there exists a toxic legacy, that of colonialism and capitalism. Moreover, to this day, the people of the region must grapple with the problems those two oppressors have wrought – a massively polluted ocean with a huge burden of plastic waste, nuclear contamination, and the warming and acidification of the ocean associated with climate change.

Writing in the International Journal of Society Systems Science, Jolly explores this cruel ongoing paradox with which the people of the Pacific region must continue to live. She points out that “the global inequalities and divisions created by a colonising capitalism and the burgeoning power and hubris of fossil-fuelled political economies are both cause and consequence of all [the problems the people face].” In the face of these ongoing crises, the people of the Pacific are seeking to redress the balance, reduce inequalities with the regions that once colonised, and resist the onslaught of continued pollution.

Anthropogenic climate change means so-called “natural” driven by human activity and pollution are becoming more commonplace and all the people of the Pacific are likely to be affected detrimentally regardless of whether the ocean laps at their doors or the live inland and at higher altitude. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch also, is perhaps the all too visible evidence of plastic pollution representing a shifting region the size of the Australian territory of Queensland.

The idyllic imaginings of the backpacker seeking oceanic utopia may never have represented reality at any point in history, but the modern waste streams that are the rivers that empty into the Pacific Ocean are the more obvious sign that all is not well.

Efforts are being made, thankfully, to address the problems of the Blue Pacific. But, adds Jolly, the people of this enormous and diverse region must forge “forceful and creative coalitions across divisions and inequalities” in their struggle to create a shared future that frees itself from the colonial capitalist legacy that anchors it unwittingly close to a figurative rocky shore rather than allowing it to sail free as it should.

Jolly, M. (2021) ‘Blue Pacific, polluted ocean’, Int. J. Society Systems Science, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp.241–257.