Between Frontier and Corridor: Maritime Extractivism in Turkey’s Sea of Marmara i vestigates how histories of racialised and religiously motivated displacement and dipossession continue to shape struggles over sovereignty and ecological survival. A vital corridor for international shipping and an expanding frontier of industrial extraction, the Marmara Sea is also a living environment that sustains migrating fish and coastallivelihoods. These competing relationships have made the sea a contested space, particularly as industrial expansion and ecological decline threaten its marine life.

The research examines how racial capitalism and Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian politics shape access to the sea and the authority to determine its future.  Combining historical inquiry with ethnographic fieldwork, the research team, comprising a principal investigator, a postdoctoral researcher and a doctoral researcher, works with dispossessed coastal communities, fishers, seafarers, and other maritime workers to explore how these transformations unfold across scales. Following the changing rhythms of maritime labour and marine life, the research traces how the legacies of dispossession continue to shape relationships with the sea and possibilities for ecological survival.