‘Never turn your back on the Ocean’: Conversations with Fear on Yuin Sea Country

Abstract

This article discusses fear as a geographical concept that can contribute to contemporary debates about human relationships with oceans. Fear is an emotional response and state of being which permeates the mind and alters the body. In relationship with the material liveliness of an ocean, fear can feel alert, anxious, and uncomfortable, charged with anger, or coupled with shame. Fear with the ocean can also feel refreshing, bring into contrast experiences of thrill, play, and wonder, and inspire deep respect for Country. This research examines fear in conversation with ocean-people living on Yuin Gadu (Sea Country), Australia. Embracing a ‘wet ontology’ (Steinberg and Peters, 2015) we analyse fears that are embodied in ocean geographies and evolve in liquid ways, across place and time. The paper is framed with feminist understandings of the body, as it examines bodies in transformation, more-than-human assemblages, and the strategies used by ocean-people to navigate and negotiate with fear.