{"title":"Asia’s oceanic Anthropocene: How political elites and global offshore oil development moved Asian marine spaces into the new epoch","authors":"S. Huebner","doi":"10.1017/S1740022821000413","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Anthropocene epoch, characterized by human-caused planetary-scale transformations like climate change and ocean acidification, today is usually associated with the period beginning in the mid-twentieth century. Taking an oceanic perspective on the Anthropocene in Asia, the article argues that oceanic and terrestrial energy regimes synchronized since the 1950s when, for the first time in history, oceanic ghost acres turned marine spaces into a major fuel source. Despite global connections between offshore oil regions located in North America, Asia, and other places going back to the late nineteenth century, Asia’s contingent offshore oil field locations and their physical geographies, combined with political factors, inhibited large-scale offshore drilling before the 1950s. These characteristics of marine spaces meant that Asian political elites and their developmentalist agendas became the guiding force in exploring offshore fields, a process that was hardly dominated by corporate capitalism or structural choice limitations due to the legacies of colonialism.","PeriodicalId":46192,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2022-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Global History","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022821000413","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract The Anthropocene epoch, characterized by human-caused planetary-scale transformations like climate change and ocean acidification, today is usually associated with the period beginning in the mid-twentieth century. Taking an oceanic perspective on the Anthropocene in Asia, the article argues that oceanic and terrestrial energy regimes synchronized since the 1950s when, for the first time in history, oceanic ghost acres turned marine spaces into a major fuel source. Despite global connections between offshore oil regions located in North America, Asia, and other places going back to the late nineteenth century, Asia’s contingent offshore oil field locations and their physical geographies, combined with political factors, inhibited large-scale offshore drilling before the 1950s. These characteristics of marine spaces meant that Asian political elites and their developmentalist agendas became the guiding force in exploring offshore fields, a process that was hardly dominated by corporate capitalism or structural choice limitations due to the legacies of colonialism.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Global History addresses the main problems of global change over time, together with the diverse histories of globalization. It also examines counter-currents to globalization, including those that have structured other spatial units. The journal seeks to transcend the dichotomy between "the West and the rest", straddle traditional regional boundaries, relate material to cultural and political history, and overcome thematic fragmentation in historiography. The journal also acts as a forum for interdisciplinary conversations across a wide variety of social and natural sciences. Published for London School of Economics and Political Science