Mapping southern Africa’s maritime space into global energy networks: The role of the BRICS Raymond Steenkamp Fonseca Stellenbosch University, South Africa raymondsf@sun.ac.za African Globalities-Global Africans, 4th Pécs African Studies Conference, 10 June 2016, University of Pécs, Hungary

Outline The historical production of geopolitical space through linked narratives of imperial discovery and capital accumulation. A theoretical understanding of the construction of territories and conceptualizations of space. The new geopolitical narratives constructed by the emerging powers: the economic impulse in mapping offshore hydrocarbon energy. the legal extension of maritime claims over ocean jurisdiction the security dimension of naval power projection.

Motivation Interest in the geopolitical and geoeconomic discourses currently constructing the space of the southern African seas. The study arises from the need to revisit the historical narrative of discovery and exploitation which have focused up to now mainly on the geopolitics of Western interests, from empires to multinational capital. The African maritime space has become increasingly defined by the energy resources, actual and potential, which it contains. With the involvement of new players, primarily the BRICS, what are the new narratives that have emerged?

More than securing energy resources, the claims over maritime territory constitute a mode of international action through which the emerging powers are able to project other dimensions of their growing power and ambitions. As the government extends its control over these seas, the role of the naval armed forces is explored: Brazil (across the Atlantic Ocean) and India (across the Indian Ocean) have projected into the geostrategic maritime space around South Africa. Develop an understanding of emerging powers’ global presence by examining the spatialisation of international politics in ocean spaces.

Parallels can be drawn with contemporary mapping practices in the South China Sea or the Russian Arctic, A critical geopolitical approach is used to explore the discursive practices through which the Southern oceans were, and are currently, constructed.

the economic impulse in mapping offshore hydrocarbon energy. the legal extension of maritime claims over ocean jurisdiction the security dimension of naval power projection.

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UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf Source Van Wyk, 2015

These geopolitical discourses, seen in the mapping practices of the offshore space, whether for resource exploration and extraction or as part of defining a maritime domain, constitutes a process of spatialisation by emerging powers.