Asia’s Maritime History and Identity at Cultural Crossroads

Maritime Asia, collectively bordered by the Pacific, Indian and Arctic Ocean, sources Asia’s food reserve, goods and ideas yet figures relatively lesser in global cultural production. Asia’s ‘great highways’ and ‘wide common’ of the sea function as routes for trade and commerce that underpins globalization. Due to unprecedented human trafficking at sea, the ocean has largely become a repository for plastic pollution, waste and effluents. Complex oceanic-ecosystems make it inconceivable for human beings to take stock of the interdependence of seas, earth and atmosphere, ‘missing in context’ for redressal.