Indian Ocean

Johannesburg, South Africa:
Africa in the World: Shifting Boundaries and Knowledge Production, African Studies
Association/American Anthropological Association

May 25, 2018

In the diversely populated Swahili emporium of Zanzibar in nineteenth-century East Africa, elites commissioned massive, elaborately carved wooden doors to adorn the front entrances of buildings. I submit that these doors may be read as a set of historical documents, especially for the ways they communicated messages of power and wealth. I focus on definitions of architectural space and adornment in Tanzania, and how they inform our understanding of power structures, cross-cultural communication, and evolution of identity. I focus on the doors not only for their role as iconic Swahili art forms and cultural artifacts famously connected to Indian Ocean heritage, but also for their broader importance as communication devices with documentary and iconographic information embedded in their historic designs. I argue they present an opportunity to uncover detailed histories in a region where discourse is often flattened or skewed. Do objects of propaganda have the ability to inform and contribute to our understandings of the development of Swahili society, cross-cultural exchanges, and relationships between communities in the Indian Ocean region, in the past and today? Panel: Arts and Popular Culture

NEW BOOK SERIES: Maritime Literature and Culture offers alternative rubrics for literary and cultural studies to those of nation, continent and area, which inter-articulate with current debates on comparative and world literatures, globalization and planetary or Anthropocene thought in illuminating ways. The humanities have paid increasing attention to oceans, islands and shores as sites of cultural production, while the maritime imagination in contemporary literatures and other cultural forms has presented ways of responding to human migration, global neoliberalism and climate change. This series provides a forum for discussion of these and other maritime expressions, including enquiries that engage maritime and coastal zones as spaces that enable reflection on labour and leisure; racial terror and performances of freedom; environmental wonder and degradation; metaphor and materiality; and the various implications of globe, world and planet.

The Indo-Pacific region stretches from the eastern Indian Ocean shores of Africa and West Asia to the littoral countries of the western Pacific. The region constitutes the ‘maritime underbelly’ of Asia, and is the fastest growing region in the world; and in a few decades, is likely to witness what may be referred to as ‘Renaissance 2.0’. The region is, therefore, ripe with enormous opportunities, not only for regional countries, but also for the rest of the global community. And yet, the region is beset with equally colossal security risks that emanate from inter alia the rise of China - that is not satisfied with ‘status quo’ in the global order including established international law and norms; strategic rivalries and the attendant security dilemma and arms race; issues of governance including maritime jurisdictions; the proliferation of malevolent non-state actors involved in maritime crimes and terrorism; and so on. The book is a collation of commentaries that analyse the trends with regard to the geopolitical and maritime security environment, along with the naval developments, in the Indo-Pacific in the past half-decade or so.

This paper describes the current state of knowledge in the study of Indo-Arabian stone anchors in the western Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, and speculates on what they may be able to tell us about the provenance, size and handling of Arab and Indian ships and shipping during the period sixth-sixteenth centuries AD.

Present short communication reports about beach stranding of Porpita porpita (Linnaeus 1758) from the Coast of Mandvi, Kutch during August 2021. Also, this is the first record of the blue button jellyfishes for the northern Gulf of Kutch region. A study was carried out by primary observation and measurements of common environmental parameters such as Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Wind Direction & Wind Speed. Aboral and oral parts were observed and described. It is assumed that the large biomass of blue button jellyfish on the beach is due to strong shoreward Monsoon winds.

Geoscience Australia, in an open collaboration with the Mathematical Sciences Institute, The Australian National University, is developing a software ap- plication, ANUGA, to model the hydrodynamics of floods, storm surges and tsunamis. The free source software implements a finite volume central- upwind Godunov method to solve the non-linear depth-averagedshallowwater waveequations. Inlight of the renewed interest in tsunami forecasting and mitigation,

The Arabian Sea Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus arabica Khalaf, 2021): A New Subspecies from the Arabian Sea and Western Indian Ocean.

By: Sharif Prof.Dr.Sc. Norman Ali Bassam Ali Taher Mohammad Ahmad Ahmad Mostafa Abdallah Mohammad Khalaf-Prinz Sakerfalke von Jaffa.

Abstract: There are four distinct subspecies of blue whales living in the Indian Ocean: the Antarctic Blue Whale Balaenoptera musculus intermedia Burmeister, 1871 of the Antarctic Zone and Southern Ocean, the Pygmy Blue Whale Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda Ichihara, 1966 found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, the Northern Indian Ocean Blue Whale Balaenoptera musculus indica Blyth, 1859, found in the Northern Indian Ocean (Khalaf, May 2020), and the newly discovered unnamed subspecies Balaenoptera musculus un-named subsp., from the Arabian Sea and the Western Indian Ocean which was recognized as a new population with a previously unreported song-type. The novel song-type was recorded off Oman in the Arabian Sea/northern Indian Ocean, off the western Chagos Archipelago in the equatorial central Indian Ocean, and off Madagascar in the southwestern Indian Ocean (Cerchio et al., 2020). Blue whale subspecies are characterized each with a diagnostic song-type. The newly discovered population was scientifically named as a subspecies based on its novel song-type. It was given the name Balaenoptera musculus arabica Khalaf, 2021.

Reference: Khalaf-Prinz Sakerfalke von Jaffa, Prof. Dr. Sc. Norman Ali Bassam Ali Taher Mohammad Ahmad Ahmad Mostafa Abdallah Mohammad (January 2021). The Arabian Sea Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus arabica Khalaf, 2021): A New Subspecies from the Arabian Sea and Western Indian Ocean. Gazelle: The Palestinian Biological Bulletin. ISSN 0178 – 6288. Volume 39, Number 193, 01 January 2021, pp. 17-46. Published by Prof. Dr. Norman Ali Khalaf Department for Environmental Research and Media, National Research Center, University of Palestine, Gaza, State of Palestine. https://cetacea-5.webs.com/arabian-sea-blue-whale & https://issuu.com/dr-norman-ali-khalaf/docs/arabian_sea_blue_whale

The taxonomy and distribution of halocyprid ostracods from the Arabian Sea Region is reported, based upon samples collected in the Northwestern Indian Ocean within the framework of the Netherlands Indian Ocean Program (NIOP: 1992-1993), the U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (U.S. JGOFS: 1994–1996), and the U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics program (U.S. GLOBEC: 1995). Forty-one species from the following genera belonging to the family Halocyprididae are
described, illustrated, and representative photographs are presented: Archiconchoecia, Alacia, Conchoecetta, Conchoecia, Conchoecilla, Conchoecissa, Discoconchoecia, Loricoecia, Mikroconchoecia, Orthoconchoecia, Paraconchoecia, Paramollicia, Platyconchoecia, Porroecia, Proceroecia,
Pseudoconchoecia, Clausoecia, Kyrtoecia, Nasoecia and Euconchoecia. For fourteen species, members of the genera Macroconchoecia, Mollicia, Paraconchoecia, Metaconchoecia, Mülleroecia, Fellia, Halocypria and Halocypris, only carapace outlines are presented. Keys to the subfamilies, tribes, genera and species, and patterns of horizontal and vertical distribution of each described species in the Arabian Sea Region are also given. The data on occurrence of halocyprid species at each of the stations during the investigation period and the depth ranges of halocyprid species found in the analyzed material but not described in the present book are listed in appendices.

Programme attached.

My presentation was titled 'The Indian Ocean, UNCLOS and Competing Continental Shelf Claims'.

Abstract

The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf was established to facilitate the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea vis-à-vis the outer limits of the continental shelf. Several Indian Ocean littoral states have made submissions to the Commission. Hence, the purpose of the paper is to revisit these submissions, their progress and the implications of their outcomes for IORA. Besides this, the paper will attempt to offer recommendations to IORA and members states to resolve outstanding claims.

The evolving international order and changing security dynamics have pushed both regional and extra-regional powers into more of a complex security framework. The security dilemma of the existing international world order can be stated in terms of anarchy. It is the existence of anarchy due to which states pursue self-interest which ultimately sets the stage for power play. The same scenario seems to have arisen in the IOR. The rising economic and geopolitical significance of the Indian Ocean by featuring the strategic moves of India, China, and the US; as well as the impact of these moves on the security of the overall region demand attention. This needs to be analysed with regards to the impact of three contentions i.e. the India-Pakistan security dyad, the competitive economic rivalry between China and India, and the third contention in terms of China and the US. Furthermore, the end result of power play in the Indian Ocean can be studied under two dimensions i.e. break up of conflict or strategic competition between the regional players and in the context of the states whose interests are at stake by the shift of power balance in the region.

We summarize some of the findings and observations from the field surveys conducted in the aftermath of the horrific tsunami of 26 December 2004 and reported in this issue. All these field surveys represent an unprecedented scientific undertaking and involved both local and international scientists working side by side. The 26 December tsunami was the first with transoceanic impact, since comprehensive postevent hydrodynamic surveys began to be conducted in the early 1990s with modern measurement tools. The tsunami impacted at least 16 nations directly: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, Oman, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, the Maldives, Rodrigues, Mauritius, Réunion, and the Seychelles. The death toll included citizens from many other countries in Asia, Europe, the South Pacific, and the Americas, giving this tsunami the grim distinction of being the first universal natural disaster of modern times.

In interstate and international interaction, norm breaking is a frequent occurrence and cause of conflict. This article discusses how to deal with such behavior when it occurs in maritime space. The particularities of distinct maritime spaces and their level of regulation provide distinct opportunities. States may then take a hybrid approach by taking into account international law in more regulated areas, but seeking alternatives in less regulated ones. To discourage norm breaking and to promote cooperative approaches toward shared challenges in maritime space, stronger ocean governance that considers hybridity seems important. The article discusses these aspects in the three cases of the Arctic, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean and derives first lessons for strengthened ocean governance.