September 19, 2023 • 38 mins
In Gramsci at Sea, author Sharad Chari asks how the environmental crisis of the oceans is linked to legacies of capitalism and imperialism across and within the oceans. Chari reads Antonio Gramsci as a thinker of the oceanic crisis, drawing on the philosopher’s prison notes and questions concerning waves of imperial power in the inter-war oceans of his time. Here, Chari is joined in conversation with Charne Lavery, Melissa Marschke, and Philippe Le Billon.
Sharad Chari is associate professor of geography and critical theory at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Gramsci at Sea and Fraternal Capital.
Charne Lavery is senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She is author of Writing Ocean Worlds.
Melissa Marschke is professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is author of Life, Fish and Mangroves.
Philippe Le Billon is professor in the Department of Geography and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. He is author of Wars of Plunder.
Persons and works referenced:
-Fernando Coronil
-The Many-Headed Hydra by Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh
-Meg Samuelson, “Thinking with Sharks,” Australian Humanities Review
-Matthew Shutzer
-Gavin Capps
-Damien Hirst’s shark tanks
-Moby Dick by Herman Melville (character of Pip)
-Ellen Gallagher
-Katherine McKittrick
-Drexciya
-John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea
-Kamau Brathwaite’s “tidalectics”
More about the book:
Gramsci at Sea is available from University of Minnesota Press. An open-access edition is available to read for free online at manifold.umn.edu.
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Episode Transcript
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Sharad Chari (00:10):
Perhaps she would never give up the possibility of
political hope. He's interestedin the the conjunctural
possibilities that emerge, youknow, even in the most dire
situations.
Narrator (00:24):
Gramsci at Sea is a succinct book that reads Antonio
Gramsci's writings on the sea,focused on his prison notes on
waves of imperial power in theinterwar oceans of his time.
Author Sherid Chari argues thatthe imprisoned militants method
is oceanic in form and that thisoceanic Marxism can attend to
oceanic crisis, to the royal ofsociocultural dynamics, to waves
(00:48):
of imperial power, and to thecapacity of black, Drexian, and
other forms of oceanic critiqueto storm us on different shores.
Here, the author is joined inconversation with Sian Lavery,
Melissa Marshka, and Felipe LeBayonne.
Charne Lavery (01:04):
Hi. We're all here to discuss Sian Lavery's
Gramsci at Sea. And I thinkwe're all gonna introduce
ourselves. My name is SianLavery, and I am a senior
lecturer in English literatureat the University of Pretoria in
South Africa, and I have knownSharad for almost ten years.
Melissa Marschke (01:22):
I'm Melissa Marashka. I'm at the University
of Ottawa. I'm a professor indevelopment studies. Delighted
to be here and have known Shradfor four months now.
Philippe Le Billon (01:33):
Hello. My name is Philippe Lebion. I'm a
professor at the University of,British Columbia in Vancouver,
Canada. And, I've been incontact with Sharad a lot,
earlier this year. And beforethat, we we had met, I would say
about seven years ago.
So it's a pleasure to be back.
Sharad Chari (01:49):
Thank you all. And I'm, Sharad Charad. I'm the
author of Crunchy at Sea. Andit's an incredible privilege to
be in conversation with Sean,Melissa, and Philippe also
because they are so invested inthe various aspects of the
material this book engages. Wehave also been, all of us,
fellows at the StellenboschInstitute for Advanced Studies
(02:11):
this past year, which is wherethree of us are, and one of us
is in his heart.
So lovely to be in conversationwith all of you.
Charne Lavery (02:22):
So, Sharad, you have finished this book. It's
about to come out. Can you tellus a little bit about how you
came to write the book? Andanother way of saying that is I
kinda wanted to know, a bitabout what is Gramsci to you, or
who is Gramsci to you and alsofor that matter the sea.
Sharad Chari (02:38):
Those are three big questions, and they're also
they're at the heart of it.Thanks for that. Okay. So I came
to write this book. I was askedto do a set of lectures at the
University of Bologna, whichwere in a summer school on the
sea last year, NorthernHemisphere summer.
I did a set of lectures onGramsci and oceanic extraction,
(03:00):
and that was the impetus forwriting this short book for
forerunners, and forerunners wasthe ideal place to get it out in
the world quickly. It builds onthe two things you just
mentioned, why Ramshy isinteresting to me and to many
people, What's interesting aboutRamshy and what we're all in
different ways puzzling over howto grasp and grapple with the
(03:24):
many dimensions of the oceaniccrisis, which is also the
planetary crisis or a windowinto the planetary crisis. So
Gramsci stands for the hope ofbringing together materialist
analysis and cultural critiquein a synthetic way. That's one
(03:44):
key reason that, people havetime and again gone to Gramsci,
read Gramsci again. Anotherthing that I always think about
in Gramsci is that Gramsci as aMarxist always is reading Marx
and is always attentive to thepractice of reading and
rereading Marx.
(04:04):
And there's something else thatI stumbled into. There's been a
major shift in Gramsci studiesover the last few decades, which
is of reading Gramsci as hesays, philologically, reading
along his notes and readingalong themes in the notes. And I
just stumbled into well, Isearched for the now that we can
search for things online. Isearched for his notes on the
(04:27):
sea. And and also imagined thathad he been in our writing
today, his notes would have beenhyperlinked and he wouldn't
think of this as a kind of seaof notes.
So they are kind of bizarrelyinterlinked. But his notes on
maritime matters are reallyinteresting, and they recast his
own thought in all sorts ofways. They take him out of a
nation centric box. They takehim into thinking about
(04:49):
overlapping and intersectingempires, which is a theme in his
work. He's sort of a very muchof a recursive thinker.
He's about all about how thepast is revived in the present.
These elements, I think, cometogether in what I think is an
oceanic method in his thought.And I think that becomes
apparent through his notes onthe scene. Should we say
anything more about Gramscibefore we get into the sea
Melissa Marschke (05:12):
maybe? Yeah. So I understand the sea more
than I understand Gramsci. Andso I found your book absolutely
fascinating to read because Ithe sea part, I was like, yeah,
yeah, yeah. And then I wasstepping back to think about
what Gramsci meant.
And so I'd love to know aboutwhat Gramsci means to you and
then thinking about his, oceanicmetaphors and writing.
Sharad Chari (05:31):
Yeah. So back to the notes on this. There are
particular notes that areheaded. You know, the the sub
the headings of the notes giveyou a clue about how he thought
they might be read. And there'sone ex really exciting note
about the emergence of, PaxAmericana, you know, The US
imperial power in Grubishi'swriting in the fascist prison in
(05:52):
the thirties and forties andimagining this sort of shifting
imperial fortunes in thatmoment.
And he's already been thinkingabout what's landed him in this
prison, and he's thinking aboutwaves of revolutions and counter
revolutions, interconnectedwaves of revolutions and counter
revolutions from the Frenchrevolution to the formation of
(06:13):
its lead to the kind of end ofthe possibility of a progressive
nationalist project to the riseof Mussolini, none with any
inevitability. And I said, youknow, these are kind of like
waves and they are like wavesand it's thought. He says early
on that when we think of athinker, we should pay attention
to their leitmotifs, their formsof thought. Again, very
(06:35):
humanities kind of way ofthinking, you know, that we we
should think about the form ofthought. As social scientists,
we tend to kind of think ofGrampesh as a thinker about
certain concepts, but his formsof thought are really
interesting.
And that's what I'm turning to.There's a note on method where
he says, this is how we couldthink about we wanna get away
from a kind of structuralistMarxism where there's a kind of
(06:56):
stratigraphy, a kind ofmaterialist base somewhere under
underground and culturalpolitical stuff on the surface.
It's much more turgid, much moreyou know, and I'm I'm rolling my
hands around as if it kind of anact, a metaphor, royal of kind
of turgid waters and besomething like that. It's much
more liquid. That's what I thinkis possible.
(07:19):
So there there are thesemetaphors in it right. He writes
about things that are happeningon the surface, waves on the
surface, and deep currentsbelow. He's interesting in our
moment around okay. Let's shifta little bit to thinking about
the sea itself. Oceanic studiesis oceanic.
There's so many things thatpeople think of in this broad
field, which is what makes itexciting. It's also a place of
(07:41):
real possibility and thinkingsynthetically about where we are
and not in in planetary terms.You know, the oceanic crisis is
the planetary crisis. But fromRamesh, first of all, the first
one point is that the method ismuch more turbulent in its way
of thinking about politicaleconomy and cultural process,
(08:01):
let's say, or representation.That's one aspect.
It's something that, of course,people have always thought about
Brent and Branchy, but theoceanic notes, I think, take us
closer to it. And also they takeus closer to these cycles or
currents of imperial process.And then in, you know, in
chapter two and three of thebook, chapter one is really
about reading Branchy. Chaptertwo and three take us into the
(08:23):
oceanic question. Granshey asks,how do we think about the plight
of the Italian south?
Maybe we think, you know, how dowe think about the plight of the
oceans? Something that all ofyou work on with the noise. And
I bring into that one of theinspirations there, one of the
citations there is to theagrarian questions, to the
importance of thinking about theagrarian question as an approach
(08:46):
to studying capitalism,imperialism, where nature and
land matter and shape outcomes.And I think in analogously, I'm
trying to draw the insights ofthe agrarian question
literature. And something that,Felipe, I wonder what you would
think about that, but it's likeI do kind of say that this is
where an an oceanic approach tothe agrarian question, an
(09:07):
aquarium question, that mightbe, more precise than some of
the recent work on extractivismor the industry work on
Bluetongue, certainly, but theactivist work on extractivism.
Philippe Le Billon (09:20):
Yeah. That's right, Jared. I was wondering a
major effort at the moment is tore people, the sea. The sea
often is seen in many metaphorsas being empty, as being this
other big void, the waves, thecurrents, those are types of,
physical entities, strongmateriality. But the sociality
of the sea and, you know, therelationship of people with the
(09:40):
sea and the sea with people,sometimes does not really
appear.
So in Gramsci's work, the onethat you cite, at least the
mariners make a littleapparition. And also, it's a
relationship between the sea,the sea creatures, and what does
that tell us about the diversityof life and the beauty of life
in particular when he talks tohis son. So maybe peopling the
(10:01):
sea, through, you know, humansand non humans. How do you see
Gramsci, kind of engaging withthat?
Sharad Chari (10:08):
That's right. Peopling, enlivening. Gramsci
calls his materialism he sayshe's interested in absolute
earthliness of thought. That'ssomething he says somewhere,
which I think if we think of,you know, with most of the
planet, that's also thinkingabout the liveliness of the
ocean as part of this, howeverwe think of the oceanic
(10:28):
question. And peopling is onlypart of the tip of the iceberg
as you noted just now.
There is that element in thesocial history of the oceans
around mariners, seafarers,mariners, Linebaugh and
Rediker's amazing book, The ManyHeaded Hydra, and all the other
texts that, you know, on oceanicfishing. And Melissa's been
doing amazing work that isbringing the labor question in a
(10:50):
fundamental way.
Melissa Marschke (10:51):
I'm putting my hand up here because I I really
want you to talk about, you havethis great quote in the book
about pelagic imperialism andyou start to unpack and you talk
about the fact that the oceanfurther depleting is linked to
this labor exploitation but alsofisheries exploitation. So I
wondered if you could talk a bitmore about pelagic imperialism.
Sharad Chari (11:11):
Well, I mean, you're an expert on this topic.
In this book, I draw on insightsfrom quite a lot of work, and I
think that what you're citing isKampling and Kolas' capitalism
in the sea. And there, I've beengiven Liam Kampling's work and
and yours and the importance ofbringing the fisheries industry
into the the frame. Right? Oftensomething that's, forgotten.
Melissa Marschke (11:34):
Well, yeah. I think labor is often not even
included as part of readings ofthe ocean. I often labour the
work that piece is often missingso for me that was really
interesting that you were ableto bring that in as you started
thinking and that makes sensebecause you're talking about
Ranche and there's a labourpiece to what he does and so to
me that was exciting to see howyou've made these connections.
Charne Lavery (11:54):
Yeah. But, I mean, what you've said, Melissa,
in your work is, you know,actually, we do think often
about the tuna and less aboutthe fishermen. On the one hand,
there's been a movement in theoceanic studies to be thinking
about the ocean as anenvironment, which I think in
your book also, Sharad, you saythe environmentalization of the
ocean in this time. But it is animportant way in which the book,
(12:16):
in addition to Melissa's workand, in fact, Philippe's work,
is bringing back people andlabor and questions of justice
into the question of theoceanic.
Sharad Chari (12:26):
Yes. I mean, I think that's right. I think that
chapter three actually, which istrying to refuse a kind of
abstract notion of land, labor,and capital and the dance of
these three ghostly figures,well, the of Mercilla Capital
and Madame Lothair. That comesfrom Marx and Marx in volume
three of Capital critiquing theidea that mainstream economists'
(12:49):
idea that these abstractionsdance around in the air. And, of
course, they are anchored inreal struggles with real people
and real animals and realenvironments.
And there that's the livelymateriality that, Ramshy is
invested in. And there's anotheraspect to that, which is that
the social history of the oceanshas focused to some degree on
oceanic labor on the surface.And one of the questions is, how
(13:12):
do we take this under the belowthe waterline? And that's been
one of the questions that sosome people have gone into deep
sea divers and the scientistswho go underwater and then all
that stuff, coral reefs
Charne Lavery (13:25):
and Pearl diving.
Sharad Chari (13:26):
Pearl diving and all these sorts of other people
aspect of the undersea. And yourquestions in your own work has
also been about going beyond thehuman eye, but to the depths
that's better beyond our humanexperience. Right? And but not
beyond human imagination orpolitics. And that's consistent
with what the attempt in thatchapter three is to say, if
(13:48):
there's something that we canlearn from the critique of
Eurocentrism, occidentalism, inthinking beyond a terra centric
or even surface conception of,you know, a peopled capitalism,
a peopled imperialism andstruggles in that level.
What does that mean? For me,these are this book opens
questions rather than you know?So this is and these are
(14:10):
questions that we're allinvested in. But I I think the
the liveliness of the sea andstruggles over that liveliness
are at the core of that.
Charne Lavery (14:20):
I I have a question about this, which which
which I'm gonna also quote fromthe book, which is that in a
couple of places, both in theintroduction to the book and in
chapter three, you talk about ananalogy between the northern or
terrestrial self
Sharad Chari (14:34):
Yes.
Charne Lavery (14:34):
As distinct from the southern or oceanic other.
Sharad Chari (14:37):
Yes.
Charne Lavery (14:37):
And another place in the book, you ask how might
we attend to terraqueousterritorialities and structure
the feeling without lapsing intoa background of teracentrism?
Yes. A land sea binary is notunlike a west rest or self other
binary distinction. And so whatthe book seems to be doing is to
be posing kind of a parallelbetween land north south and sea
(14:57):
south other and linking kind ofthe sea to the south. So I I
wanted to know if that's kind ofwhat you were doing and maybe
how this links to, like, theSouth Of Italy slash the
Southern Hemisphere slash theglobal South.
Yeah. And so what's kind ofsouthern about the oceanic?
Sharad Chari (15:11):
So it's interesting. Gramsci himself
points out to his own childhoodtaunt about throwing the
mainlanders into the sea, whichis we know that in Southern
Africa too. It's, it throw thesettlers into the sea, which is
a southern anti colonialposition in in Italy that he
grew up with, but a kind ofcrude one that he then instead
(15:33):
of refines and transforms thisis his oceanic thought, his
constant revision of his formsof thinking. And he has a much
more subtle formulation lateron, which the point is is not
simply redress of the South orredress of the oceans. It's
upending the work of the binarythat has been part of waves of
pelagic imperialism, waves ofoceanic imperialism in general.
(15:55):
So Fernando Cornel's critique inthat beginning of that chapter,
he tries to read ways in whichthe self other West dress binary
is mobilized in differentattempts at a kind of anti
Eurocentric form of thought,which preserves that binary. And
I kind of said suggest thatconversation between Marcus
(16:15):
Rediker and and and some waysMeg Samuelson's response to
Marcus Rediker about the sharkYeah. Which I thought was just
amazing. Her way of reading theDamien Hirst shark in relation
to the charts of the of theslave trade. That constellation
of ideas is opening upsomething, I think.
Philippe Le Billon (16:33):
Another question was a little bit about
the digitalization of the ocean,the mobilization of the ocean,
the robotization of operation onthe ocean. You know, what what
does that tell us also aboutthis, idea of surplus
population, of deep peoplingagain the sea, making this kind
of abstraction of labor andpeople and, you know, preparing
(16:56):
in in a way the ocean to be,fully exploited, having, you
know, levels of extractivismthat become detached from the
possibilities of socialstruggles precisely because they
are seen as an impedimentpotentially. Even if, you know,
the the the class ofprofessionals employed at sea,
as you know, there there aremany different ones. You know,
some are highly exploited,others have, amazing packages in
(17:20):
order to, perform their theirwork.
Sharad Chari (17:22):
One of the things I find useful about thinking
with Gramsci is that he he'salways attentive to how things
come together in particularconjunctures, spatially and
temporally. I don't attend tothe digital ocean, that I should
say that, and its effects. It isan important question. It is it
isn't something that I attend toadequately, But I I do a little
(17:45):
bit. I do a little bit.
But I I guess this method wouldsay we still have to look at the
specific conjuncturalsituations. In all these
chapters, actually, I wouldn'tGramsci wouldn't Gramsci at sea,
wouldn't make a blanket argumentabout what the digital ocean
portends in some of the ways Ithink you have characterized
(18:06):
Snow. You know, Melissa's beenworking on on seafarers trapped
in forms of unfree labor andfishing boats who could use some
connection to the digital oceanto to convey the in fact, their
roots as discernible through thethrough the digitization of the
ocean tell us where they'vebeen, how long they've been
away. So there are lots ofaspects. And, Ramesh, you would
(18:28):
say, where are the tools ofstruggle here?
And I think your work isactually pointing to the
political use of some aspects ofthe digital ocean, including,
you know, seafarers' ability ornot to communicate while at sea,
for long periods, stuck at seaunder miserable conditions.
Melissa Marschke (18:46):
And I also think you actually might not
talk about digitization as muchas a tool of struggle, but you
bring in ideas of struggle. Soyou have ideas from agrarian
studies, you have ideas forracial capitalism, all to help
unpack the oceanic and what'semerging at sea. So I'm
wondering if you could talk abit more about how you draw on
(19:06):
both agrarian studies and racialcapitalism to help us better
understand and puzzle throughthe oceanic and gram chain.
Sharad Chari (19:15):
Thanks. That that that's something that I puzzle
through in general, but here Iactually point to in in that
second chapter some work fromthe Grandmaster tradition that
has been doing something that isconsistent with the expectation
in the word racial capitalism,which is that prior forms of
(19:37):
power, authority, inequalitythrough race and through other
means are imported into andconserved in the making of
particular configurations ofcapitalism. And that's very much
consistent with Ramche's method.Ramche's always always
interested in conjunctures whereelements of the past persist and
shape the present. And in acouple of texts that I point to,
(19:58):
wonderful work by Matt Schutzer,mining in North India, Gavin
Katz in, South Africa.
Anyway, that that that work thatshows how prior social
institutions are drawn intoreconstitutions of agrarian
capitalism. You know, and myquestion was, is can we look at
points into the diversity oflabor regimes that we just
(20:21):
pointed to earlier, you know,that persist, and free laborers
still persist in all sorts offorms. The people's ocean is is
incredibly differentiated. Thisis a question, I think, that the
the way I would bring the greatquestion into thinking about the
people notion in that way is tothink about how these prior
forms are part of you knowmaking this incredibly unequal
(20:42):
equal speed. I think that's thegeneral lesson of racial
capitalism and that's what theblack studies work tends to
think of more aboutconsciousness and about
representation.
When the agrarian literature, Ithink, gets more into the
material conditions and lessinto the cultural and, you know,
representational side of it, Wedon't think as much about the
(21:03):
present stream of
Charne Lavery (21:05):
Can I actually, bring I think we can move
recursively across the chapters?There's a a meta method here
where you're reading Gramsci ashaving this recursive and
oceanic method Yes. In in hisown work, but also that's the
way in which you're reading himin this book, I think. I mean,
one of the things the book does,which I just wanted to mention
is, you know, you mentioned thatthe the the field of oceanic
studies is oceanic in size. Andone of the things the book does
(21:28):
is kind of via these thisconjuncture of Gramsci and and
the oceanic is is kind of mapout the field.
There's quite a lot of ofterrain mapping to say this is
through this kind of microwindow onto the field. Here's
the is the wider field outthere. But I wanted to ask you
in particular about questions ofyour method. And there's places
(21:48):
in in the book in which you flagyour method, and one of it, is
less, like, dialogic orconversational. So you say, you
know, what you wanna achieve inthe book is a conceptualization
of the oceanic question adequateto the present with Gramsci as a
proximal interlocutor.
And I wondered if you wanted totalk a bit about that, like,
about using Gramsci as aninterlocutor, so as as a kind of
(22:09):
conversationalist in in yourthinking through these
questions, and or the ways inwhich, as you were saying, you
have actually quite a you callit humanities method, but it's a
literary method. It's a kind ofclose reading of Gramsci and
texts, which then in chapterfour becomes realized in a kind
of close reading of artwork ofboth arts, literature, Moby
Dick, Ellen Gallagher, and andthe other artists and writers
(22:32):
that you mentioned.
Sharad Chari (22:33):
Well, a lot of that is thanks to you, Sean.
Thanks to the education that youhave offered. Gramsci lends
himself to reading, as I said,because he himself is always you
know, he's stuck in a prison. Hehas a few passages from Marx. If
he calls himself the Marxist, hehas a few, but he keeps going
back to them and rereading andreinterpreting and thinking with
(22:55):
them.
He does these seemingly kind ofplotted histories of the French
Revolution, but then they'remeant to be ways of rereading
and rethinking and revising. Sohe isn't invested in reading in
a certain way. So when I thinkwith him as an interlocutor,
that's what I mean. It's sort ofthinking with that, the
possibilities in that form ofthought as a Marxist as well.
(23:17):
You know, as a Marxist who'sstill convinced that we have to
understand how capitalism works,but not in a mechanistic way and
always attentive to conjuncturalpossibilities and struggles and
the artists and also rereadreading Moby Dick, through a
kind of black critical lens,which you also pushed me to do
by taking Pip seriously.
(23:38):
Pip poo falls into the oceansomewhere near the streets of
Malacca. And we know from Sean'swork actually that Pequod has
moved through the in the oceanas the ocean, through the Indian
Ocean.
Charne Lavery (23:49):
And And the Indian Ocean in particular.
Sharad Chari (23:51):
The Indian Ocean as in its oceanic materiality,
seeing all these creatures andalso the the whales giving birth
and all that. And then Pip fallsin and sees something horrific
and becomes the kind of crazedperson who can see the truth. He
is in that sense a a kind ofincredible figure to think with,
(24:12):
and he's a crucial figure forEllen Gallagher also. The artist
you've got me to engage yourwork carefully. Catherine
McKittrick is the other figurewho reads, Helen Gallagher with
Drexia and tries to think aboutthis black aqua futurist work as
a kind of different kind ofcritical archive.
And the one of the excitingthings is that Drexia,
Charne Lavery (24:35):
this It's a long backstory.
Sharad Chari (24:37):
So it's a long backstory that can be summarized
as what? This band that isfiercely anti commercial or not
band, the kind of the DJ isreally work, fiercely anti
commercial emerging from theruins of Fortis, Detroit. For so
in the aftermath of Gramsci'sreading of this particular space
from a distance as an archetypeof, American capitalism, which
(24:59):
he doesn't read as racialcapitalism, in fact, because he
doesn't read the Negro questionquestion which circulated around
him in that time. In theaftermath of that, in the ruins
of that, emerges thiselectronica duo who I think pick
up the question, and they pickup the question through this
notion of the storm. They theythink of their musical events as
(25:21):
grasping conjuncturalopportunities in various places
and stoking them.
That's the kind of politicalhope that I think connects back
to Gramsci. With Gramsci is justas, you know, Philippe, you
asked about when you asked aboutthe digital ocean. Gramsci would
never give up the possibility ofpolitical hope. He's interested
in the the conjuncturalpossibilities that emerge, you
(25:44):
know, even in the most diresituation sitting in Mussolini's
prison. And then he is sittingin Mussolini's prison thinking
about folklore as, you know, thesource of hope.
He writes to his family andSardinia to tell him to send him
childhood folklore and story,you know, fairy tales and things
like that to look for the seedsof hope, seeds of change. So we
think similarly about theoceanic western, when Drexia
(26:06):
imagines a black underseautopia, and they create these
storms, these events of musicalevents that are unplanned and
anti commercial. There'ssomething there that Drexia read
with Gallagher, Pip, JohnO'Komfrah, gives us a way of
thinking about constellations ofpolitical hope, I think, of or
(26:29):
of political transformation indire situations, which we face
all over the world and seenthrough the oceans. And so when
we turn to thinking aboutstruggles in the ocean, we tend
to think sequentially about theorigins of the strike and of the
abolitionism and, you know, themovements against abolition
across the world and making up aglobal color line across the
oceans. Also, the struggles overthe ocean itself, the legal
(26:53):
struggles around, deep sea, theimportance of third world
lawyering in that domain.
And at the end of that, are thestruggles of all these moments
ever over? I don't think we canever say that. Melissa here is
working on on the ongoingstruggles of unfree labor here
in Cape Town. And the archivesof of Oceanic struggle are never
(27:16):
passed. They're always with us.
This is what I, you know, throwcaution to the wind and say in
the end. There's always thepossibility that they might come
together in particular ways andin ways we can't yet anticipate.
Philippe Le Billon (27:28):
Talking about things we cannot
anticipate, at the moment,there's a lot of work being done
to try to get some of the mostintelligent creatures on the
planet, citizens, to, speak in,in a language that we can,
understand through translation.I'm just wondering what is the
place of, non humans in,reviving this this hope and
(27:48):
maybe learning a little bit ofthe vernacular, and, the
folkloric tales that, you know,where world groups are
exchanging. We know they are. Weknow they are telling stories to
each other. You know, is thatsomething that could open us
form of hope, in the twentyfirst century when, you know,
we'll be able to talk to those,extraterrestrial and oceanic
(28:08):
creatures.
Sharad Chari (28:10):
We have to, right, in some way imagine collective
for Grumpy, you know, thequestion is how do we imagine
the articulation of collectivepolitical will? And that has has
to be to think about the oceaniccrisis, it has to be human and
non human. Gramsci, Anit has ifhis materialism takes us into
an, you know, an earthly form,whether that means, decoding the
(28:33):
folklore of the Whales. Whales.And I think there's space for
thinking on this.
What does it mean withoutanthropomorphism?
Charne Lavery (28:42):
Or centrism.
Sharad Chari (28:43):
Or centrism as morphism.
Charne Lavery (28:46):
You do actually end the book with a reference to
Pip, what he sees, that he'ssort of kind of floating at the
sea surface and what Pip sees orexperiences is a sense of this
intense liveliness of the seabeneath him. There's an intense
mysterious multitudinous andvery strange. In some ways, it
may drive him mad. Yes. Or asyou put it, Pip might be the
(29:06):
Gramsciyan organic intellectualof the oceanic crisis as a
result.
So maybe it's a kind of informedsort of madness. And and later
on in the same paragraph, yousaid, Gramsci returns to the
radical traditions of theshipwreck with Pip and political
hope. Yes. And there's somethingquite tricky about thinking
about the creatures who weretrying to learn their language
and how decimated theirpopulations are already, along
(29:29):
with the overfishing that eventhe fishermen that Melissa is
working with are very much awareof, that their own jobs are at
risk because of the increasinglack of fish in the sea. So
there's quite a lot of reasonsto not to to be thinking
shipwreck as as opposed to hope.
Yes. Yes. And maybe this is, youknow, it's the it's the note
(29:50):
your your book ends on, but Iwanted you to maybe just say a
bit more about this, like, howGramsci helps us to think both
shipwreck and hope
Sharad Chari (29:57):
at the
Charne Lavery (29:57):
same time.
Sharad Chari (29:58):
Well, he got he had that, the famous line from
Omar Hola. What is it? Pessimismof the intellect, optimism of
the will. Mhmm. So, you know,you can work with the tragic
mode, but tragedy doesn'tforetell its, in fact, they're
the all the great writers oftragedy have been opening up the
(30:19):
contradictions.
Right? Helping us think aboutCaliban or helping us think with
these figures. Pip is like a,like, little hidden gem in Moby
Dick. You're right. There's alot of speculation about what
this you know, whether Pip wasan enslaved young black cabin
boy on the ship.
But captain Ahab, this kind ofcrazed Trump like, whatever
(30:42):
whatever he is, kind ofmegalomaniac figure bent on
taking this ship to itsdestruction in pursuit of the
whatever the white whale ismeant to signify a whole know,
body work on this. Pip is thefigure, the only character he
listens to after Pip falls intothe ocean, the only person on
(31:02):
the ship who's still a person,not quite a person. It's also
across the human, nonhumanboundary in a way. You know,
maybe he is the figure that alsothat Philippe you're pointing
to, who can listen to thestories of the whales. We don't
need to decode it, that that'sthat kind of figure.
Empathy and not in a humanistway, in a kind of revolutionary
way. That's the Prussian organicintellectual that that we might
(31:25):
read in Pip. Akonfrat is aninteresting figure because his
vertigo c reads in multiplescreens, melting ice. These
figures, you know, like, Aquianogazing out, active melting ice.
Aquiano when he has been free afreed slave now beholding the
Arctic.
Right? He goes on the Arcticexpedition. Virginia Wolf and,
(31:48):
you know, easing out of the sea.I love that aspect. And but, you
know, trying to thinkintertextually, but also beyond
the text as we know it.
Right? Because the theenvironmental aspect of a confra
takes us back in a way toPhilippe's question. How do we
actually reap the scale ofdestruction? Melissa, you know,
fighting for justice orseafarers, trapped on fishing
(32:13):
ships, data pittance, workingunder conditions of impermanent
freedom, chasing fish that arebeing deflated, destroyed,
chasing a fishery in the processof destruction.
Charne Lavery (32:24):
And we should say fighting for Wi Fi on boats.
Sharad Chari (32:28):
Fighting for Wi Fi. All the elements of the
conjuncture matter. All thepolitical battles matter. So
that that that we we can't findthe kind of second coming in one
place. That's also Gramscian.
Right? We find the politicalbattles that fit in a
particular. That's what I thinkthe black app of futurists help
us think with sites of political
Melissa Marschke (32:47):
hope. Yeah. I think it's a really lovely way
to end the book actually is onthat note of hope. It's quite
inspirational actually to seehow one might think about the
future through Pramsci, and yourfocus on Black aquafuturism
really intrigued me. It was veryoriginal, actually.
The first three chapters Iunderstood much more, but the
fourth chapter for me was morehumanities read and, maybe a bit
(33:11):
of a a leap out of the socialscientist way Yeah. Of thinking.
And I wanted to ask you, alittle bit more about how you
managed I mean, you talked aboutSharon's information, but how
did you even think like that?
Sharad Chari (33:22):
Well, Gramsci himself, you know, before he
goes, he's in prison. He's anactivist and he's also a theater
critic writing these, andmerciless about Pirandello. We
couldn't stand Pirandello. Hesays interested in, you know,
the cultural terrain in whichthe possibility of political
change might be, you know,articulated that this question
(33:42):
of caring for this oceaniccrisis at all is crucial. And so
I also say he would have joinedus binging Netflix through the
pandemic.
Charne Lavery (33:52):
I like that point.
Sharad Chari (33:53):
Yeah. There's no low cultural low enough Gramsci.
Charne Lavery (33:59):
Can we return at the end to this idea of which
you proposed, the idea that theGramsci and structure of thought
is oceanic? You mentioned in thebook, and there's a way in which
the argument overlaps a lot withthe argument that we could push
back on a dialectical form ofthought, which has an inherent
progressivism by going back toCaribbean thought and
particularly the notion oftidalectics, so back and forth,
(34:20):
the recursiveness. And that isin part the way that you
described Gramsci's form ofthought. You said this is
important. This only form ofthought is important in shaping
political world, which now ifyou have to read this
conversation, I'm like, okay.
That's important because it'soptimism. It's the world. You
know, it's important to shapethis optimistic political world,
despite pessimistic intellectualDiagnosis. Yeah. Diagnosis.
(34:43):
But so maybe to think a littlebit about the relationship
between oceanic and tidalelectrics and also relationship
in the book between what you'rethinking of of is an oceanic
form of thought and what couldalso just be considered a
fluidity or it kind of moregenerally?
Sharad Chari (34:57):
Yeah. I thanks. That's a great question. I
actually read Braithwaite'sdialectics. I don't do it
properly here, but I don't thinkwhat Pathway calls dialectics
need be a critique of all formsof dialectical thought.
And Ramesh, he is a dialecticalthinker to the extent that he's
interested in flux,transformation, change,
(35:21):
struggle. Dialectics does nothave to be thesis, synthesis,
platform. I think that that thismore fluid struggled over form
of dialectical earthly form aswell mediated through material
processes, mediated in relationto the nonhuman. That is
Gramsci's dialectical approachand it is consistent with the
(35:42):
kind of dialectics, which is notjust back and forth. It is the
rhythms as he said, right, kindof attention to flux.
There's some work in Gramscianstudies on thinking about what
distinguishes Gramsciandialectics, but I think the
earthly aspect of it issomething that we need to think
more about. And I think that'sconsistent with ground weight.
Philippe Le Billon (36:02):
So in the current conjuncture, which is
pretty dreadful with, you know,environmental degradation,
climate change, geopoliticaltensions, where would, Gramsci
take hold from the sea to tocome back a little bit towards
the end of the book where, youknow, you bring his discussion I
mean, his his letter with to tohis son. I'm just wondering a
(36:22):
little bit, like, what can theocean tell us about how we could
live politically in a differentway towards the planet, towards
each other? I know it's a bigquestion. But he lived in the
entire war year, and so a bigwar came. And everybody is kind
of afraid of the two big warscoming.
All war against the environmentand the environment kind of
(36:43):
worrying on us as a result andand also, you know, geopolitical
wars.
Sharad Chari (36:47):
That's a great question. It's interesting.
Gramsci's approach to waves ofstruggle and counter struggle,
We live in a time when that's ina way generalized, and we think
we're immune to it. That'sactually a mistake. We are
definitely immunized from it.
Well, the book, I think, doesn'ttell us, you know, where to
look, but it does maybe tell ushow to think about conjunctures
(37:13):
and different conjunctures,thinking with your own interests
and your own work and your longinterest in ocean defenders. And
that's sort of one place to lookat how in specific places,
specific people, specificconstellations have emerged in
relation to particular oceanicissues here in Southern Africa,
this, you know, amazing,struggle in Tallaveni, when
(37:36):
which the subsea emerges as asite of ritual and and
traditional
Charne Lavery (37:43):
An ancestral lineage.
Sharad Chari (37:44):
Sense, ancestral lineage, ancestral home Yeah.
And also place of refuge anddreams. And that becomes part of
a legal struggle to defend theocean from extraction. Amazing.
That's a site in which culturalwork is crucial.
Black cultural work is crucialand mobilized in exciting
(38:04):
political way with hope. Ofcourse, we need a world of this.
We need a planet of oceandefenders.
Charne Lavery (38:10):
That's beautiful. What a way to end.
Sharad Chari (38:12):
Thank you. Well, the three of you could, answer
anything that you asked muchbetter than me. I appreciate it
very much. Thanks a lot.
Philippe Le Billon (38:24):
Beautiful. Thank you so much. Yes.
Narrator (38:28):
This has been a University of Minnesota Press
production. The book, Gram, Sheat Sea, is available from
University of Minnesota Press.An open access edition is
available at manifold.umn.edu.Thank you for listening.
Perhaps she would never give up the possibility of
political hope. He's interestedin the the conjunctural
possibilities that emerge, youknow, even in the most dire
situations.
Narrator (00:24):
Gramsci at Sea is a succinct book that reads Antonio
Gramsci's writings on the sea,focused on his prison notes on
waves of imperial power in theinterwar oceans of his time.
Author Sherid Chari argues thatthe imprisoned militants method
is oceanic in form and that thisoceanic Marxism can attend to
oceanic crisis, to the royal ofsociocultural dynamics, to waves
(00:48):
of imperial power, and to thecapacity of black, Drexian, and
other forms of oceanic critiqueto storm us on different shores.
Here, the author is joined inconversation with Sian Lavery,
Melissa Marshka, and Felipe LeBayonne.
Charne Lavery (01:04):
Hi. We're all here to discuss Sian Lavery's
Gramsci at Sea. And I thinkwe're all gonna introduce
ourselves. My name is SianLavery, and I am a senior
lecturer in English literatureat the University of Pretoria in
South Africa, and I have knownSharad for almost ten years.
Melissa Marschke (01:22):
I'm Melissa Marashka. I'm at the University
of Ottawa. I'm a professor indevelopment studies. Delighted
to be here and have known Shradfor four months now.
Philippe Le Billon (01:33):
Hello. My name is Philippe Lebion. I'm a
professor at the University of,British Columbia in Vancouver,
Canada. And, I've been incontact with Sharad a lot,
earlier this year. And beforethat, we we had met, I would say
about seven years ago.
So it's a pleasure to be back.
Sharad Chari (01:49):
Thank you all. And I'm, Sharad Charad. I'm the
author of Crunchy at Sea. Andit's an incredible privilege to
be in conversation with Sean,Melissa, and Philippe also
because they are so invested inthe various aspects of the
material this book engages. Wehave also been, all of us,
fellows at the StellenboschInstitute for Advanced Studies
(02:11):
this past year, which is wherethree of us are, and one of us
is in his heart.
So lovely to be in conversationwith all of you.
Charne Lavery (02:22):
So, Sharad, you have finished this book. It's
about to come out. Can you tellus a little bit about how you
came to write the book? Andanother way of saying that is I
kinda wanted to know, a bitabout what is Gramsci to you, or
who is Gramsci to you and alsofor that matter the sea.
Sharad Chari (02:38):
Those are three big questions, and they're also
they're at the heart of it.Thanks for that. Okay. So I came
to write this book. I was askedto do a set of lectures at the
University of Bologna, whichwere in a summer school on the
sea last year, NorthernHemisphere summer.
I did a set of lectures onGramsci and oceanic extraction,
(03:00):
and that was the impetus forwriting this short book for
forerunners, and forerunners wasthe ideal place to get it out in
the world quickly. It builds onthe two things you just
mentioned, why Ramshy isinteresting to me and to many
people, What's interesting aboutRamshy and what we're all in
different ways puzzling over howto grasp and grapple with the
(03:24):
many dimensions of the oceaniccrisis, which is also the
planetary crisis or a windowinto the planetary crisis. So
Gramsci stands for the hope ofbringing together materialist
analysis and cultural critiquein a synthetic way. That's one
(03:44):
key reason that, people havetime and again gone to Gramsci,
read Gramsci again. Anotherthing that I always think about
in Gramsci is that Gramsci as aMarxist always is reading Marx
and is always attentive to thepractice of reading and
rereading Marx.
(04:04):
And there's something else thatI stumbled into. There's been a
major shift in Gramsci studiesover the last few decades, which
is of reading Gramsci as hesays, philologically, reading
along his notes and readingalong themes in the notes. And I
just stumbled into well, Isearched for the now that we can
search for things online. Isearched for his notes on the
(04:27):
sea. And and also imagined thathad he been in our writing
today, his notes would have beenhyperlinked and he wouldn't
think of this as a kind of seaof notes.
So they are kind of bizarrelyinterlinked. But his notes on
maritime matters are reallyinteresting, and they recast his
own thought in all sorts ofways. They take him out of a
nation centric box. They takehim into thinking about
(04:49):
overlapping and intersectingempires, which is a theme in his
work. He's sort of a very muchof a recursive thinker.
He's about all about how thepast is revived in the present.
These elements, I think, cometogether in what I think is an
oceanic method in his thought.And I think that becomes
apparent through his notes onthe scene. Should we say
anything more about Gramscibefore we get into the sea
Melissa Marschke (05:12):
maybe? Yeah. So I understand the sea more
than I understand Gramsci. Andso I found your book absolutely
fascinating to read because Ithe sea part, I was like, yeah,
yeah, yeah. And then I wasstepping back to think about
what Gramsci meant.
And so I'd love to know aboutwhat Gramsci means to you and
then thinking about his, oceanicmetaphors and writing.
Sharad Chari (05:31):
Yeah. So back to the notes on this. There are
particular notes that areheaded. You know, the the sub
the headings of the notes giveyou a clue about how he thought
they might be read. And there'sone ex really exciting note
about the emergence of, PaxAmericana, you know, The US
imperial power in Grubishi'swriting in the fascist prison in
(05:52):
the thirties and forties andimagining this sort of shifting
imperial fortunes in thatmoment.
And he's already been thinkingabout what's landed him in this
prison, and he's thinking aboutwaves of revolutions and counter
revolutions, interconnectedwaves of revolutions and counter
revolutions from the Frenchrevolution to the formation of
(06:13):
its lead to the kind of end ofthe possibility of a progressive
nationalist project to the riseof Mussolini, none with any
inevitability. And I said, youknow, these are kind of like
waves and they are like wavesand it's thought. He says early
on that when we think of athinker, we should pay attention
to their leitmotifs, their formsof thought. Again, very
(06:35):
humanities kind of way ofthinking, you know, that we we
should think about the form ofthought. As social scientists,
we tend to kind of think ofGrampesh as a thinker about
certain concepts, but his formsof thought are really
interesting.
And that's what I'm turning to.There's a note on method where
he says, this is how we couldthink about we wanna get away
from a kind of structuralistMarxism where there's a kind of
(06:56):
stratigraphy, a kind ofmaterialist base somewhere under
underground and culturalpolitical stuff on the surface.
It's much more turgid, much moreyou know, and I'm I'm rolling my
hands around as if it kind of anact, a metaphor, royal of kind
of turgid waters and besomething like that. It's much
more liquid. That's what I thinkis possible.
(07:19):
So there there are thesemetaphors in it right. He writes
about things that are happeningon the surface, waves on the
surface, and deep currentsbelow. He's interesting in our
moment around okay. Let's shifta little bit to thinking about
the sea itself. Oceanic studiesis oceanic.
There's so many things thatpeople think of in this broad
field, which is what makes itexciting. It's also a place of
(07:41):
real possibility and thinkingsynthetically about where we are
and not in in planetary terms.You know, the oceanic crisis is
the planetary crisis. But fromRamesh, first of all, the first
one point is that the method ismuch more turbulent in its way
of thinking about politicaleconomy and cultural process,
(08:01):
let's say, or representation.That's one aspect.
It's something that, of course,people have always thought about
Brent and Branchy, but theoceanic notes, I think, take us
closer to it. And also they takeus closer to these cycles or
currents of imperial process.And then in, you know, in
chapter two and three of thebook, chapter one is really
about reading Branchy. Chaptertwo and three take us into the
(08:23):
oceanic question. Granshey asks,how do we think about the plight
of the Italian south?
Maybe we think, you know, how dowe think about the plight of the
oceans? Something that all ofyou work on with the noise. And
I bring into that one of theinspirations there, one of the
citations there is to theagrarian questions, to the
importance of thinking about theagrarian question as an approach
(08:46):
to studying capitalism,imperialism, where nature and
land matter and shape outcomes.And I think in analogously, I'm
trying to draw the insights ofthe agrarian question
literature. And something that,Felipe, I wonder what you would
think about that, but it's likeI do kind of say that this is
where an an oceanic approach tothe agrarian question, an
(09:07):
aquarium question, that mightbe, more precise than some of
the recent work on extractivismor the industry work on
Bluetongue, certainly, but theactivist work on extractivism.
Philippe Le Billon (09:20):
Yeah. That's right, Jared. I was wondering a
major effort at the moment is tore people, the sea. The sea
often is seen in many metaphorsas being empty, as being this
other big void, the waves, thecurrents, those are types of,
physical entities, strongmateriality. But the sociality
of the sea and, you know, therelationship of people with the
(09:40):
sea and the sea with people,sometimes does not really
appear.
So in Gramsci's work, the onethat you cite, at least the
mariners make a littleapparition. And also, it's a
relationship between the sea,the sea creatures, and what does
that tell us about the diversityof life and the beauty of life
in particular when he talks tohis son. So maybe peopling the
(10:01):
sea, through, you know, humansand non humans. How do you see
Gramsci, kind of engaging withthat?
Sharad Chari (10:08):
That's right. Peopling, enlivening. Gramsci
calls his materialism he sayshe's interested in absolute
earthliness of thought. That'ssomething he says somewhere,
which I think if we think of,you know, with most of the
planet, that's also thinkingabout the liveliness of the
ocean as part of this, howeverwe think of the oceanic
(10:28):
question. And peopling is onlypart of the tip of the iceberg
as you noted just now.
There is that element in thesocial history of the oceans
around mariners, seafarers,mariners, Linebaugh and
Rediker's amazing book, The ManyHeaded Hydra, and all the other
texts that, you know, on oceanicfishing. And Melissa's been
doing amazing work that isbringing the labor question in a
(10:50):
fundamental way.
Melissa Marschke (10:51):
I'm putting my hand up here because I I really
want you to talk about, you havethis great quote in the book
about pelagic imperialism andyou start to unpack and you talk
about the fact that the oceanfurther depleting is linked to
this labor exploitation but alsofisheries exploitation. So I
wondered if you could talk a bitmore about pelagic imperialism.
Sharad Chari (11:11):
Well, I mean, you're an expert on this topic.
In this book, I draw on insightsfrom quite a lot of work, and I
think that what you're citing isKampling and Kolas' capitalism
in the sea. And there, I've beengiven Liam Kampling's work and
and yours and the importance ofbringing the fisheries industry
into the the frame. Right? Oftensomething that's, forgotten.
Melissa Marschke (11:34):
Well, yeah. I think labor is often not even
included as part of readings ofthe ocean. I often labour the
work that piece is often missingso for me that was really
interesting that you were ableto bring that in as you started
thinking and that makes sensebecause you're talking about
Ranche and there's a labourpiece to what he does and so to
me that was exciting to see howyou've made these connections.
Charne Lavery (11:54):
Yeah. But, I mean, what you've said, Melissa,
in your work is, you know,actually, we do think often
about the tuna and less aboutthe fishermen. On the one hand,
there's been a movement in theoceanic studies to be thinking
about the ocean as anenvironment, which I think in
your book also, Sharad, you saythe environmentalization of the
ocean in this time. But it is animportant way in which the book,
(12:16):
in addition to Melissa's workand, in fact, Philippe's work,
is bringing back people andlabor and questions of justice
into the question of theoceanic.
Sharad Chari (12:26):
Yes. I mean, I think that's right. I think that
chapter three actually, which istrying to refuse a kind of
abstract notion of land, labor,and capital and the dance of
these three ghostly figures,well, the of Mercilla Capital
and Madame Lothair. That comesfrom Marx and Marx in volume
three of Capital critiquing theidea that mainstream economists'
(12:49):
idea that these abstractionsdance around in the air. And, of
course, they are anchored inreal struggles with real people
and real animals and realenvironments.
And there that's the livelymateriality that, Ramshy is
invested in. And there's anotheraspect to that, which is that
the social history of the oceanshas focused to some degree on
oceanic labor on the surface.And one of the questions is, how
(13:12):
do we take this under the belowthe waterline? And that's been
one of the questions that sosome people have gone into deep
sea divers and the scientistswho go underwater and then all
that stuff, coral reefs
Charne Lavery (13:25):
and Pearl diving.
Sharad Chari (13:26):
Pearl diving and all these sorts of other people
aspect of the undersea. And yourquestions in your own work has
also been about going beyond thehuman eye, but to the depths
that's better beyond our humanexperience. Right? And but not
beyond human imagination orpolitics. And that's consistent
with what the attempt in thatchapter three is to say, if
(13:48):
there's something that we canlearn from the critique of
Eurocentrism, occidentalism, inthinking beyond a terra centric
or even surface conception of,you know, a peopled capitalism,
a peopled imperialism andstruggles in that level.
What does that mean? For me,these are this book opens
questions rather than you know?So this is and these are
(14:10):
questions that we're allinvested in. But I I think the
the liveliness of the sea andstruggles over that liveliness
are at the core of that.
Charne Lavery (14:20):
I I have a question about this, which which
which I'm gonna also quote fromthe book, which is that in a
couple of places, both in theintroduction to the book and in
chapter three, you talk about ananalogy between the northern or
terrestrial self
Sharad Chari (14:34):
Yes.
Charne Lavery (14:34):
As distinct from the southern or oceanic other.
Sharad Chari (14:37):
Yes.
Charne Lavery (14:37):
And another place in the book, you ask how might
we attend to terraqueousterritorialities and structure
the feeling without lapsing intoa background of teracentrism?
Yes. A land sea binary is notunlike a west rest or self other
binary distinction. And so whatthe book seems to be doing is to
be posing kind of a parallelbetween land north south and sea
(14:57):
south other and linking kind ofthe sea to the south. So I I
wanted to know if that's kind ofwhat you were doing and maybe
how this links to, like, theSouth Of Italy slash the
Southern Hemisphere slash theglobal South.
Yeah. And so what's kind ofsouthern about the oceanic?
Sharad Chari (15:11):
So it's interesting. Gramsci himself
points out to his own childhoodtaunt about throwing the
mainlanders into the sea, whichis we know that in Southern
Africa too. It's, it throw thesettlers into the sea, which is
a southern anti colonialposition in in Italy that he
grew up with, but a kind ofcrude one that he then instead
(15:33):
of refines and transforms thisis his oceanic thought, his
constant revision of his formsof thinking. And he has a much
more subtle formulation lateron, which the point is is not
simply redress of the South orredress of the oceans. It's
upending the work of the binarythat has been part of waves of
pelagic imperialism, waves ofoceanic imperialism in general.
(15:55):
So Fernando Cornel's critique inthat beginning of that chapter,
he tries to read ways in whichthe self other West dress binary
is mobilized in differentattempts at a kind of anti
Eurocentric form of thought,which preserves that binary. And
I kind of said suggest thatconversation between Marcus
(16:15):
Rediker and and and some waysMeg Samuelson's response to
Marcus Rediker about the sharkYeah. Which I thought was just
amazing. Her way of reading theDamien Hirst shark in relation
to the charts of the of theslave trade. That constellation
of ideas is opening upsomething, I think.
Philippe Le Billon (16:33):
Another question was a little bit about
the digitalization of the ocean,the mobilization of the ocean,
the robotization of operation onthe ocean. You know, what what
does that tell us also aboutthis, idea of surplus
population, of deep peoplingagain the sea, making this kind
of abstraction of labor andpeople and, you know, preparing
(16:56):
in in a way the ocean to be,fully exploited, having, you
know, levels of extractivismthat become detached from the
possibilities of socialstruggles precisely because they
are seen as an impedimentpotentially. Even if, you know,
the the the class ofprofessionals employed at sea,
as you know, there there aremany different ones. You know,
some are highly exploited,others have, amazing packages in
(17:20):
order to, perform their theirwork.
Sharad Chari (17:22):
One of the things I find useful about thinking
with Gramsci is that he he'salways attentive to how things
come together in particularconjunctures, spatially and
temporally. I don't attend tothe digital ocean, that I should
say that, and its effects. It isan important question. It is it
isn't something that I attend toadequately, But I I do a little
(17:45):
bit. I do a little bit.
But I I guess this method wouldsay we still have to look at the
specific conjuncturalsituations. In all these
chapters, actually, I wouldn'tGramsci wouldn't Gramsci at sea,
wouldn't make a blanket argumentabout what the digital ocean
portends in some of the ways Ithink you have characterized
(18:06):
Snow. You know, Melissa's beenworking on on seafarers trapped
in forms of unfree labor andfishing boats who could use some
connection to the digital oceanto to convey the in fact, their
roots as discernible through thethrough the digitization of the
ocean tell us where they'vebeen, how long they've been
away. So there are lots ofaspects. And, Ramesh, you would
(18:28):
say, where are the tools ofstruggle here?
And I think your work isactually pointing to the
political use of some aspects ofthe digital ocean, including,
you know, seafarers' ability ornot to communicate while at sea,
for long periods, stuck at seaunder miserable conditions.
Melissa Marschke (18:46):
And I also think you actually might not
talk about digitization as muchas a tool of struggle, but you
bring in ideas of struggle. Soyou have ideas from agrarian
studies, you have ideas forracial capitalism, all to help
unpack the oceanic and what'semerging at sea. So I'm
wondering if you could talk abit more about how you draw on
(19:06):
both agrarian studies and racialcapitalism to help us better
understand and puzzle throughthe oceanic and gram chain.
Sharad Chari (19:15):
Thanks. That that that's something that I puzzle
through in general, but here Iactually point to in in that
second chapter some work fromthe Grandmaster tradition that
has been doing something that isconsistent with the expectation
in the word racial capitalism,which is that prior forms of
(19:37):
power, authority, inequalitythrough race and through other
means are imported into andconserved in the making of
particular configurations ofcapitalism. And that's very much
consistent with Ramche's method.Ramche's always always
interested in conjunctures whereelements of the past persist and
shape the present. And in acouple of texts that I point to,
(19:58):
wonderful work by Matt Schutzer,mining in North India, Gavin
Katz in, South Africa.
Anyway, that that that work thatshows how prior social
institutions are drawn intoreconstitutions of agrarian
capitalism. You know, and myquestion was, is can we look at
points into the diversity oflabor regimes that we just
(20:21):
pointed to earlier, you know,that persist, and free laborers
still persist in all sorts offorms. The people's ocean is is
incredibly differentiated. Thisis a question, I think, that the
the way I would bring the greatquestion into thinking about the
people notion in that way is tothink about how these prior
forms are part of you knowmaking this incredibly unequal
(20:42):
equal speed. I think that's thegeneral lesson of racial
capitalism and that's what theblack studies work tends to
think of more aboutconsciousness and about
representation.
When the agrarian literature, Ithink, gets more into the
material conditions and lessinto the cultural and, you know,
representational side of it, Wedon't think as much about the
(21:03):
present stream of
Charne Lavery (21:05):
Can I actually, bring I think we can move
recursively across the chapters?There's a a meta method here
where you're reading Gramsci ashaving this recursive and
oceanic method Yes. In in hisown work, but also that's the
way in which you're reading himin this book, I think. I mean,
one of the things the book does,which I just wanted to mention
is, you know, you mentioned thatthe the the field of oceanic
studies is oceanic in size. Andone of the things the book does
(21:28):
is kind of via these thisconjuncture of Gramsci and and
the oceanic is is kind of mapout the field.
There's quite a lot of ofterrain mapping to say this is
through this kind of microwindow onto the field. Here's
the is the wider field outthere. But I wanted to ask you
in particular about questions ofyour method. And there's places
(21:48):
in in the book in which you flagyour method, and one of it, is
less, like, dialogic orconversational. So you say, you
know, what you wanna achieve inthe book is a conceptualization
of the oceanic question adequateto the present with Gramsci as a
proximal interlocutor.
And I wondered if you wanted totalk a bit about that, like,
about using Gramsci as aninterlocutor, so as as a kind of
(22:09):
conversationalist in in yourthinking through these
questions, and or the ways inwhich, as you were saying, you
have actually quite a you callit humanities method, but it's a
literary method. It's a kind ofclose reading of Gramsci and
texts, which then in chapterfour becomes realized in a kind
of close reading of artwork ofboth arts, literature, Moby
Dick, Ellen Gallagher, and andthe other artists and writers
(22:32):
that you mentioned.
Sharad Chari (22:33):
Well, a lot of that is thanks to you, Sean.
Thanks to the education that youhave offered. Gramsci lends
himself to reading, as I said,because he himself is always you
know, he's stuck in a prison. Hehas a few passages from Marx. If
he calls himself the Marxist, hehas a few, but he keeps going
back to them and rereading andreinterpreting and thinking with
(22:55):
them.
He does these seemingly kind ofplotted histories of the French
Revolution, but then they'remeant to be ways of rereading
and rethinking and revising. Sohe isn't invested in reading in
a certain way. So when I thinkwith him as an interlocutor,
that's what I mean. It's sort ofthinking with that, the
possibilities in that form ofthought as a Marxist as well.
(23:17):
You know, as a Marxist who'sstill convinced that we have to
understand how capitalism works,but not in a mechanistic way and
always attentive to conjuncturalpossibilities and struggles and
the artists and also rereadreading Moby Dick, through a
kind of black critical lens,which you also pushed me to do
by taking Pip seriously.
(23:38):
Pip poo falls into the oceansomewhere near the streets of
Malacca. And we know from Sean'swork actually that Pequod has
moved through the in the oceanas the ocean, through the Indian
Ocean.
Charne Lavery (23:49):
And And the Indian Ocean in particular.
Sharad Chari (23:51):
The Indian Ocean as in its oceanic materiality,
seeing all these creatures andalso the the whales giving birth
and all that. And then Pip fallsin and sees something horrific
and becomes the kind of crazedperson who can see the truth. He
is in that sense a a kind ofincredible figure to think with,
(24:12):
and he's a crucial figure forEllen Gallagher also. The artist
you've got me to engage yourwork carefully. Catherine
McKittrick is the other figurewho reads, Helen Gallagher with
Drexia and tries to think aboutthis black aqua futurist work as
a kind of different kind ofcritical archive.
And the one of the excitingthings is that Drexia,
Charne Lavery (24:35):
this It's a long backstory.
Sharad Chari (24:37):
So it's a long backstory that can be summarized
as what? This band that isfiercely anti commercial or not
band, the kind of the DJ isreally work, fiercely anti
commercial emerging from theruins of Fortis, Detroit. For so
in the aftermath of Gramsci'sreading of this particular space
from a distance as an archetypeof, American capitalism, which
(24:59):
he doesn't read as racialcapitalism, in fact, because he
doesn't read the Negro questionquestion which circulated around
him in that time. In theaftermath of that, in the ruins
of that, emerges thiselectronica duo who I think pick
up the question, and they pickup the question through this
notion of the storm. They theythink of their musical events as
(25:21):
grasping conjuncturalopportunities in various places
and stoking them.
That's the kind of politicalhope that I think connects back
to Gramsci. With Gramsci is justas, you know, Philippe, you
asked about when you asked aboutthe digital ocean. Gramsci would
never give up the possibility ofpolitical hope. He's interested
in the the conjuncturalpossibilities that emerge, you
(25:44):
know, even in the most diresituation sitting in Mussolini's
prison. And then he is sittingin Mussolini's prison thinking
about folklore as, you know, thesource of hope.
He writes to his family andSardinia to tell him to send him
childhood folklore and story,you know, fairy tales and things
like that to look for the seedsof hope, seeds of change. So we
think similarly about theoceanic western, when Drexia
(26:06):
imagines a black underseautopia, and they create these
storms, these events of musicalevents that are unplanned and
anti commercial. There'ssomething there that Drexia read
with Gallagher, Pip, JohnO'Komfrah, gives us a way of
thinking about constellations ofpolitical hope, I think, of or
(26:29):
of political transformation indire situations, which we face
all over the world and seenthrough the oceans. And so when
we turn to thinking aboutstruggles in the ocean, we tend
to think sequentially about theorigins of the strike and of the
abolitionism and, you know, themovements against abolition
across the world and making up aglobal color line across the
oceans. Also, the struggles overthe ocean itself, the legal
(26:53):
struggles around, deep sea, theimportance of third world
lawyering in that domain.
And at the end of that, are thestruggles of all these moments
ever over? I don't think we canever say that. Melissa here is
working on on the ongoingstruggles of unfree labor here
in Cape Town. And the archivesof of Oceanic struggle are never
(27:16):
passed. They're always with us.
This is what I, you know, throwcaution to the wind and say in
the end. There's always thepossibility that they might come
together in particular ways andin ways we can't yet anticipate.
Philippe Le Billon (27:28):
Talking about things we cannot
anticipate, at the moment,there's a lot of work being done
to try to get some of the mostintelligent creatures on the
planet, citizens, to, speak in,in a language that we can,
understand through translation.I'm just wondering what is the
place of, non humans in,reviving this this hope and
(27:48):
maybe learning a little bit ofthe vernacular, and, the
folkloric tales that, you know,where world groups are
exchanging. We know they are. Weknow they are telling stories to
each other. You know, is thatsomething that could open us
form of hope, in the twentyfirst century when, you know,
we'll be able to talk to those,extraterrestrial and oceanic
(28:08):
creatures.
Sharad Chari (28:10):
We have to, right, in some way imagine collective
for Grumpy, you know, thequestion is how do we imagine
the articulation of collectivepolitical will? And that has has
to be to think about the oceaniccrisis, it has to be human and
non human. Gramsci, Anit has ifhis materialism takes us into
an, you know, an earthly form,whether that means, decoding the
(28:33):
folklore of the Whales. Whales.And I think there's space for
thinking on this.
What does it mean withoutanthropomorphism?
Charne Lavery (28:42):
Or centrism.
Sharad Chari (28:43):
Or centrism as morphism.
Charne Lavery (28:46):
You do actually end the book with a reference to
Pip, what he sees, that he'ssort of kind of floating at the
sea surface and what Pip sees orexperiences is a sense of this
intense liveliness of the seabeneath him. There's an intense
mysterious multitudinous andvery strange. In some ways, it
may drive him mad. Yes. Or asyou put it, Pip might be the
(29:06):
Gramsciyan organic intellectualof the oceanic crisis as a
result.
So maybe it's a kind of informedsort of madness. And and later
on in the same paragraph, yousaid, Gramsci returns to the
radical traditions of theshipwreck with Pip and political
hope. Yes. And there's somethingquite tricky about thinking
about the creatures who weretrying to learn their language
and how decimated theirpopulations are already, along
(29:29):
with the overfishing that eventhe fishermen that Melissa is
working with are very much awareof, that their own jobs are at
risk because of the increasinglack of fish in the sea. So
there's quite a lot of reasonsto not to to be thinking
shipwreck as as opposed to hope.
Yes. Yes. And maybe this is, youknow, it's the it's the note
(29:50):
your your book ends on, but Iwanted you to maybe just say a
bit more about this, like, howGramsci helps us to think both
shipwreck and hope
Sharad Chari (29:57):
at the
Charne Lavery (29:57):
same time.
Sharad Chari (29:58):
Well, he got he had that, the famous line from
Omar Hola. What is it? Pessimismof the intellect, optimism of
the will. Mhmm. So, you know,you can work with the tragic
mode, but tragedy doesn'tforetell its, in fact, they're
the all the great writers oftragedy have been opening up the
(30:19):
contradictions.
Right? Helping us think aboutCaliban or helping us think with
these figures. Pip is like a,like, little hidden gem in Moby
Dick. You're right. There's alot of speculation about what
this you know, whether Pip wasan enslaved young black cabin
boy on the ship.
But captain Ahab, this kind ofcrazed Trump like, whatever
(30:42):
whatever he is, kind ofmegalomaniac figure bent on
taking this ship to itsdestruction in pursuit of the
whatever the white whale ismeant to signify a whole know,
body work on this. Pip is thefigure, the only character he
listens to after Pip falls intothe ocean, the only person on
(31:02):
the ship who's still a person,not quite a person. It's also
across the human, nonhumanboundary in a way. You know,
maybe he is the figure that alsothat Philippe you're pointing
to, who can listen to thestories of the whales. We don't
need to decode it, that that'sthat kind of figure.
Empathy and not in a humanistway, in a kind of revolutionary
way. That's the Prussian organicintellectual that that we might
(31:25):
read in Pip. Akonfrat is aninteresting figure because his
vertigo c reads in multiplescreens, melting ice. These
figures, you know, like, Aquianogazing out, active melting ice.
Aquiano when he has been free afreed slave now beholding the
Arctic.
Right? He goes on the Arcticexpedition. Virginia Wolf and,
(31:48):
you know, easing out of the sea.I love that aspect. And but, you
know, trying to thinkintertextually, but also beyond
the text as we know it.
Right? Because the theenvironmental aspect of a confra
takes us back in a way toPhilippe's question. How do we
actually reap the scale ofdestruction? Melissa, you know,
fighting for justice orseafarers, trapped on fishing
(32:13):
ships, data pittance, workingunder conditions of impermanent
freedom, chasing fish that arebeing deflated, destroyed,
chasing a fishery in the processof destruction.
Charne Lavery (32:24):
And we should say fighting for Wi Fi on boats.
Sharad Chari (32:28):
Fighting for Wi Fi. All the elements of the
conjuncture matter. All thepolitical battles matter. So
that that that we we can't findthe kind of second coming in one
place. That's also Gramscian.
Right? We find the politicalbattles that fit in a
particular. That's what I thinkthe black app of futurists help
us think with sites of political
Melissa Marschke (32:47):
hope. Yeah. I think it's a really lovely way
to end the book actually is onthat note of hope. It's quite
inspirational actually to seehow one might think about the
future through Pramsci, and yourfocus on Black aquafuturism
really intrigued me. It was veryoriginal, actually.
The first three chapters Iunderstood much more, but the
fourth chapter for me was morehumanities read and, maybe a bit
(33:11):
of a a leap out of the socialscientist way Yeah. Of thinking.
And I wanted to ask you, alittle bit more about how you
managed I mean, you talked aboutSharon's information, but how
did you even think like that?
Sharad Chari (33:22):
Well, Gramsci himself, you know, before he
goes, he's in prison. He's anactivist and he's also a theater
critic writing these, andmerciless about Pirandello. We
couldn't stand Pirandello. Hesays interested in, you know,
the cultural terrain in whichthe possibility of political
change might be, you know,articulated that this question
(33:42):
of caring for this oceaniccrisis at all is crucial. And so
I also say he would have joinedus binging Netflix through the
pandemic.
Charne Lavery (33:52):
I like that point.
Sharad Chari (33:53):
Yeah. There's no low cultural low enough Gramsci.
Charne Lavery (33:59):
Can we return at the end to this idea of which
you proposed, the idea that theGramsci and structure of thought
is oceanic? You mentioned in thebook, and there's a way in which
the argument overlaps a lot withthe argument that we could push
back on a dialectical form ofthought, which has an inherent
progressivism by going back toCaribbean thought and
particularly the notion oftidalectics, so back and forth,
(34:20):
the recursiveness. And that isin part the way that you
described Gramsci's form ofthought. You said this is
important. This only form ofthought is important in shaping
political world, which now ifyou have to read this
conversation, I'm like, okay.
That's important because it'soptimism. It's the world. You
know, it's important to shapethis optimistic political world,
despite pessimistic intellectualDiagnosis. Yeah. Diagnosis.
(34:43):
But so maybe to think a littlebit about the relationship
between oceanic and tidalelectrics and also relationship
in the book between what you'rethinking of of is an oceanic
form of thought and what couldalso just be considered a
fluidity or it kind of moregenerally?
Sharad Chari (34:57):
Yeah. I thanks. That's a great question. I
actually read Braithwaite'sdialectics. I don't do it
properly here, but I don't thinkwhat Pathway calls dialectics
need be a critique of all formsof dialectical thought.
And Ramesh, he is a dialecticalthinker to the extent that he's
interested in flux,transformation, change,
(35:21):
struggle. Dialectics does nothave to be thesis, synthesis,
platform. I think that that thismore fluid struggled over form
of dialectical earthly form aswell mediated through material
processes, mediated in relationto the nonhuman. That is
Gramsci's dialectical approachand it is consistent with the
(35:42):
kind of dialectics, which is notjust back and forth. It is the
rhythms as he said, right, kindof attention to flux.
There's some work in Gramscianstudies on thinking about what
distinguishes Gramsciandialectics, but I think the
earthly aspect of it issomething that we need to think
more about. And I think that'sconsistent with ground weight.
Philippe Le Billon (36:02):
So in the current conjuncture, which is
pretty dreadful with, you know,environmental degradation,
climate change, geopoliticaltensions, where would, Gramsci
take hold from the sea to tocome back a little bit towards
the end of the book where, youknow, you bring his discussion I
mean, his his letter with to tohis son. I'm just wondering a
(36:22):
little bit, like, what can theocean tell us about how we could
live politically in a differentway towards the planet, towards
each other? I know it's a bigquestion. But he lived in the
entire war year, and so a bigwar came. And everybody is kind
of afraid of the two big warscoming.
All war against the environmentand the environment kind of
(36:43):
worrying on us as a result andand also, you know, geopolitical
wars.
Sharad Chari (36:47):
That's a great question. It's interesting.
Gramsci's approach to waves ofstruggle and counter struggle,
We live in a time when that's ina way generalized, and we think
we're immune to it. That'sactually a mistake. We are
definitely immunized from it.
Well, the book, I think, doesn'ttell us, you know, where to
look, but it does maybe tell ushow to think about conjunctures
(37:13):
and different conjunctures,thinking with your own interests
and your own work and your longinterest in ocean defenders. And
that's sort of one place to lookat how in specific places,
specific people, specificconstellations have emerged in
relation to particular oceanicissues here in Southern Africa,
this, you know, amazing,struggle in Tallaveni, when
(37:36):
which the subsea emerges as asite of ritual and and
traditional
Charne Lavery (37:43):
An ancestral lineage.
Sharad Chari (37:44):
Sense, ancestral lineage, ancestral home Yeah.
And also place of refuge anddreams. And that becomes part of
a legal struggle to defend theocean from extraction. Amazing.
That's a site in which culturalwork is crucial.
Black cultural work is crucialand mobilized in exciting
(38:04):
political way with hope. Ofcourse, we need a world of this.
We need a planet of oceandefenders.
Charne Lavery (38:10):
That's beautiful. What a way to end.
Sharad Chari (38:12):
Thank you. Well, the three of you could, answer
anything that you asked muchbetter than me. I appreciate it
very much. Thanks a lot.
Philippe Le Billon (38:24):
Beautiful. Thank you so much. Yes.
Narrator (38:28):
This has been a University of Minnesota Press
production. The book, Gram, Sheat Sea, is available from
University of Minnesota Press.An open access edition is
available at manifold.umn.edu.Thank you for listening.
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