TERYTORIALIZUJĄC MORZE. O PERFORMATYWNOŚCI WŁADZY I ROLI KARTOGRAFII W REJONIE MORZA POŁUDNIOWOCHIŃSKIEGO
TERRITORIALISING THE SEA. PERFORMANCE OF SOVEREIGNTY AND THE ROLE OF CARTOGRAPHY IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

Summary/Abstract: This article is an anthropological contribution to the standard geopolitical and legal analyses of the South China Sea dispute and to the existing debates on the problem of territoriality, sovereignty and nationalism. In contrast with those studies, which analyse the South China Sea dispute and the growing competition over natural resources by looking mainly at major state actors, I focus on fishermen communities in China and Vietnam that bear the historical, geopolitical, and economic consequences of this territorial issue. Thus, I propose the interpretation that takes into account historical, social, and cartographic imaginations of nationhood in the context of the competing Chinese and Vietnamese maritime claims to the Paracels and Spratly Islands. Conceptualising maps not as representations of territory but rather as a process, I analyse the ways in which cartographic discourses are used by different groups of actors to produce and enact sovereignty, citizenship, and national identity through activities that make the sea territory legible on the local, national, and global scale.

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