Research group

Ocean Justice

Plastic pollution in the sea by Naja Bertolt Jensenon

We are at the intersections of transdisciplinary ocean studies and concepts of global and environmental justice, exploring how to decolonise our engagements with the ocean and understandings of justice.

About

The Ocean Justice group aims to explore what the ocean brings to the meaning of justice, the presence and representation of the ocean in courts and law, and how we can unlearn and decolonise both our engagement with the ocean and understandings of justice in transdisciplinary manners.  

In 2022-23 we had a launch meeting that focused on how to build the group and on submitting a report to the International Seabed Authority Intersessional (ISA) Working Group on intangible and tangible Underwater Cultural Heritage and the insertion of this concept on their current draft of the ISA Mining Code. The report was co-authored with Mekhala Dave from Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary:

A Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary Submission in Collaboration with Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute Special Interest Group on Ocean Justice (ISA Council’s Intersessional Working Group on Underwater Cultural Heritage, 15 May 2023, pp. 24–34).

For 2023-2024, we plan to hold an international and transdisciplinary hybrid Ocean Justice panel. We hope that the conversations that begin at this panel in early 2024, can be continued during a sandpit and writing retreat with members from the group. This retreat will allow a few members of the group to put together 2 main outputs: a brief publication on ocean justice and a funding bid to spend more time exploring this concept via a larger research project.

We also run a termly reading group, which includes both published work and work-in-progress to support scholars across the University and outside. We hold our discussion on an MS Teams group

To find out more about the Ocean Justice Special Interest Group and what we do, get in touch with group champions Giulia Champion and Dina Lupin.

Join the SMMI Community to sign up to this group, and any others of interest to you. 

(Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensenon)

People, projects and publications

People

Dr Cathy Lucas

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • The role of gelatinous zooplankton in ecosystem structure and function.
  • Causes and consequences of jellyfish blooms.
  • Jellyfish and ecosystem servives in the coastal zone.

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Cecilia D'angelo

Associate Professor
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Emeritus Professor Charles Banks

Research interests

  • Controlled anaerobic and aerobic biodegradation of municipal and industrial solid wastes
  • Concepts for an integrated farming system for non competitive food and fuel production
  • Energy production from digestion of crops and agricultural wastes
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Professor Charles Keevil

Professor In Environmental Health Care
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Dr Charlie Thompson

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • Coastal Monitoring
  • Coastal Processes
  • Sediment Stability, Resuspension and Exchange processes
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Professor Chris Armstrong

Professor of Political Theory

Research interests

  • Global justice
  • Climate justice
  • Ocean justice and ocean politics

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Chris Hauton PhD, FRSB, FMBA

Head of School

Research interests

  • Hauton has worked extensively with colleagues in India and Bangladesh since 2015 and has developed an international profile in shrimp health research, including contributing to the development of a mobile phone app, the 'Chingri Shrimp App', to support shrimp farmer training in Bangladesh.
  • Research has also included quantifying the potential toxic risk of deep sea mining of mineral resources. He was part of the leading team of the EC FP7 MIDAS Project, exploring the ecological risk of deep-sea mining, outputs from which led to contributions to the Royal Society Foresight Future of the Sea report (2016/17), to presentations at the UN International Seabed Authority in Jamaica, and expert contributions to the UN ISA ISA Legal and Technical Commision ISBA/27/C/11 'Guidelines for the establishment of baseline environmental data.'
  • Other activity

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Chris Hill

Professorial Fellow-Enterprise
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Professor Christer Petley

Professor of Atlantic History

Research interests

  • Atlantic History
  • Caribbean History
  • Slavery and Abolition

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Christopher Goatley

Lecturer in Marine Biology

Research interests

  • Fish ecology, evolution and biogeography
  • Impact of sediments on coral reef ecology
  • Palaeoecology of reef ecosystems

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Related research institutes, centres and groups

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Connect with us

Enquiries

If you're interested in joining us or collaborating, get in touch with the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute.