Presentation by Cecilie V. Ødegaard (University of Bergen), Marianna Betti (University of Bergen)
discussant: Michael Watts (University of California, Berkeley)
In this talk, we explore how automated and digitalized technologies in the shipping industry affect ways of relating to the ocean. New technologies in this industry can be seen as both enhancing and simplifying the ocean and the human-ocean-ship relationship, through digital and mechanized mediations that reconfigure ‘oceanic engagements’ not only onboard vessels (i.e. through digital representations of ocean effects on the materialities of the ship), but also on land (i.e. in simulation training and control rooms). We use these reflections and observations to think about work life, (in)visibilities, and knowledge transfers at the crossroads between sea and land.
Cecilie Ødeegard is Professor of social anthropology at the University of Bergen. As PI for the ASMOG project her current research explores the re-makings of labour and nature practices with the proclaimed energy transition and the introduction of automated technologies in the maritime sector. Ødegaard has also done research in the Andes (Peru) and the Arctic (Svalbard) with a thematic interest in (post)carbon politics, rewilding, territorial frontiers, and indigeneity.
Marianna Betti is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Her previous research for her Ph.D. focused on oil and gas exploration and extraction in Turkana, Kenya. Presently, Betti is studying the transportation of energy (LNG) by sea and exploring the implications of automation in the maritime sector. Her research encompasses a range of topics, including the integration of green technology in shipping, changes in work identity, and the dynamics of communication and engagement between land and sea. She is the vice principal investigator in the ASMOG project led by Prof. Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard.