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Long Abstract
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For most coastal communities, the land and ocean are one and people are socialised as such to cultivate a balanced relationship with the ocean to ensure long term sustainability and resource stewardship of the oceans and coast. As such, being with the sea becomes a conduit for the transmission of intangible cultural values. Insofar as tangible cultural heritage is concerned, being with the sea facilitated the use of diverse material and domestic artifacts that ultimately encouraged young people to learn about cultural practices from older generations. These exchanges helped to build community and solidarity as well as an identity anchored in the land-sea landscape Accessing the sea provides community members with opportunities to improve wellbeing, community building and connection with the natural landscape, however what is rather being experienced in displaced communities is social consequences. That is, not the freedom to be with the sea produces social ills, trauma and hardship. Disconnection from the sea means that people are now confined to the less ‘idyllic’ setting of marginalisation. From the perspective of blue heritages and/or intangible and tangible cultural heritages, it can be argued that this displacement did not merely remove options for leisure and family bonding but also resulted in diminished possibilities for the creation of intangible cultural heritage related to the sea and coasts. The round table aims to advance important and urgent dialogues regarding misalignments between communities and their restricted access to the sea. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in South Africa, Kenya and Namibia 2022, the round table offers a voice to marginalised coastal communities and their contemporary realities and identities that are historically, politically and culturally inscribed by interrogating the effects of displacement of coastal communities where legal mechanisms have been used to further marginalise and oppress.
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