Article: "Drowning Piracy Threats: The Binary of Land and Sea"
Article by Adrienne Mannov, PhD Fellow at Department of Anthropology, in AMET Maritime Journal, Issue 1, December 2013.”
Within the context of maritime piracy, the paper explores the social matrix of lies, secrecy and avoidance regarding piracy threats in which seafarers are entangled and how this may relate to binary cultural perceptions of land/sea.
The sea/land binary socially constructs the sea as a natural and thus unruly space and the land is socially constructed as a place of culture and civility.
In order to navigate between shore perceptions of piracy and their own experiences and perceptions – in order to make these inconsistencies somehow fit into the binary they contradict – seafarers downplay, keep secret or even lie about piracy threats.