ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Defining the Ocean/s: Science, Internationalism and Hydrography

• In Event: Sea-Work and Modern Science 1900-1939 2

English Abstract

After World War I, the new International Hydrography Bureau sought to become a representative new institution for the postwar world. The formation of the IHB --the first international body affiliated with the League of Nations -- signalled the vital importance of the oceans in the 1920s, intellectually, economically and politically. Its goals were to define the oceans, parceling out surveying responsibilities to member nations, and coordinating the standards of pilot guides. Five years of discussions led to the first edition of an international agreement in 1928 defining the “limits of Oceans and Seas.” But the negotiation of the definition of oceanic regions was never a purely administrative exercise, and the IHB engaged multiple disciplines and methodologies as well as political and economic interests. This distinctively postwar organization, and the discussions of the shape of oceans and their borders that ensued within it, illuminate our histories of disciplines and the idea of the environment as well as revealing the several versions of oceanic internationalism that emerged – or re-emerged – after 1918.

Author

• Katharine Anderson, York