ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to imagine alternative hydro-ontologies and epistemologies from a feminist standpoint. First, it draws on as well as transgresses two important ontological categories: cuerpo-territorio, as in territorial feminisms from Latin America, and aquapelagic assemblages (Hayward, 2012a, 2012b). Instead, it proposes the framework of feminist aquapelagic relational bodies, in which women’s bodies are at the centre as the primary body of water through which women exist, act, think, interact, know, represent and feel fluidly in relation to their human, non-human and more-than-human surroundings. Second, this chapter utilises the concept of submerged/emergent perspectives and fish-eye viewpoint (Gómez-Barris, 2017) as well as the notion of seascape epistemology and oceanic literacy (Ingersoll, 2016) to complement the aforementioned ontological categories with an epistemological suggestion of seeing and knowing from below the waters, or submerged/emergent seascape epistemology. Finally, the said feminist hydro-ontologies and epistemologies are imagined in Cassi Namoda’s Mussiro Women, Ilha do Ibo I (Namoda, 2020a) and II (Namoda, 2020b). Ultimately, this chapter draws attention – and is a tribute – to the submerged/emergent praxes of existence, resistance and peace in/with the oceans embodied by the women of Ibo Island in Northern Mozambique, which are put in contrast with the destructive logics of rampant colonial capitalism, extractivism and militarism linked to the exploitation of liquified gas off Mozambique’s Northern coast.
