Forkonomy()
How to buy/own/mint one millilitre of the ocean from the South China Sea? Our on-going experimental project titled Forkonomy() is guided by such a speculative question that takes the figurative and pirated material — the South China Sea — as our object of study.
The northest Austronesians in Taiwan, the Tankas in Hong Kong and many ocean peoples have viewed the world as “a sea of islands” rather than “places along the continent”, which reveals the fact that the sea is home to explore and to make world.
Despite the fact that Nan Hai is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked waterways for international trade, it is also one of the most disputable sea areas in the world over the territorial claims, spanning across Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, The Philippines and Vietnam. In addition, multiple Asian governments assert sovereignty over rocks, reefs, as well as other geographic features and undersea natural resources. This oceanic object is highly tangible and material, and yet significantly economical, military and political. If boundaries were not dotted lines on a map or “imaginary lines in the ocean” (Hau’ofa 1993) to compete for colonial power, but to think about them as making and maintaining kin connections to respect one another, including traditions and histories, then how might we queer the South China Sea otherwise? What does it mean by mining and co-owning one millilitre of the ocean from the South China Sea?
