CO>SEA is a research team based at Sapienza University of Rome – MEMOTEF Dep. advancing the interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international Marine Social Geography and Visual Research to investigate the socio-ecological transformations affecting the global Ocean that reverberate in local seas, and the human and nonhuman society connections with the ocean, building upon the Marine Social Science and Critical Ocean studies. It performs engaged research via participatory action research and citizen science, and visual documentation methods, framing the sea as both a conceptual and physical space for rethinking our place within complex, evolving ecological systems. CO>SEA pilot experimentation in the Anzio (Rome, Italy) coastal water is intended to create a dedicated, reproducible and scalable methodology for investigating society’s relationship with the Ocean and the main socio-environmental issues affecting the coastal sea. Sapienza University of Rome -Memotef Dep. and external collaborators are setting up and managing a participatory process for gathering tacit knowledge of local stakeholders in the Gulf of Anzio about the main emergencies affecting the coastal waters. Special attention is dedicated to the marine plastic pollution issue. We aim to explore how attachments between societies and the sea are forged to “stay with the (environmental) problem” and engage with the process of sympoiesis, drawing on the composition of materialities, imaginaries and forces in the liquid space to reconceive our common belongingness to the ocean. Particularly we investigate how seagoing people conceptualise and experience the changing ocean invaded by plastic pollution. Through networking with local participants and international experts, transect walk and rapid appraisal open interviews, collaborative elaboration of an analysis plan (identification of scientific support needed) and plan for documentation and reporting, the fieldwork is designed with the support of local institutions. A sailboat offshore exploration is taking place in the summer of 2025 for observation and documentation of selected emergencies in coastal waters , field-work note-taking (including where relevant biological sampling), offshore interviews, video-photographic shooting in and out the water with scuba divers support.
