My research critically analyses economic and resource management discourse and its capacity to format economy and environment. In particular, it examines where and how marine science and policy are (re)framing ocean space, fishing practices, and coastal communities such that they better align with a capitalist rationality, practice, and economy. While acknowledging this trajectory and critiquing its outcomes, my research also challenges its necessity and foregrounds where and how marine science and policy might be disrupted, reconfigured, and reworked on behalf of community economies and environmental commons. As a result, it amplifies the capacities of, for example, community-based economic initiatives, interdisciplinary science projects, and spatial planning and data development to enact and enhance community and environmental wellbeing (see communityeconomies.org).
Current research projects engage with teams of scientists documenting climate-driven marine environmental change. To these projects I bring a concern for community and environment as enacted through participatory and metrological methods that establish and give meaning to human “communities at sea.” Other recent projects examine new forms of marine governance such as Marine Spatial Planning and foreground the ontological politics of these increasingly global initiatives.
My research is funded by grants from national agencies such as the NSF, NOAA, and SeaGrant. I recently edited a volume titled Making Other Worlds Possible: Performing Diverse Economies and I am currently an editor of a book series at the University of Minnesota Press called Diverse Economies and Liveable Worlds.
I am also a contributor to the Centre for Maritime Research (MARE) and an associate editor for its journal Maritime Studies (MAST), and I serve on the advisory board of the Floating Laboratory of Action and Theory at Sea (FLOATS).
Recent Publications:
The "communities at sea" approach:
- St. Martin, K. and J. Olson. 2017. Creating Space for Community in Marine Conservation and Management: Mapping ‘Communities at Sea’, in Conservation in the Anthropocene Ocean, Levin, P. and M. Poe eds. (Elsevier), pp. 123-141.
Relevant to mapping communities and climate change:
- Pinsky, M., E. Fenichel, M. Fogarty, S. Levin, B. McCay, K. St. Martin, R. Selden, T. Young. 2020. Fish and Fisheries in Hot Water: What is Happening and How do We Adapt? Population Ecology doi: 10.1002/1438-390X.12050.
- Rogers, L.A., R. Griffin, T. Young, E. Fuller, K. St.Martin, M.L. Pinsky. 2019. Shifting Habitats Expose Fishing Communities to Risk Under Climate Change. Nature Climate Change 9(7), pp.512+.
- Young, T., E. Fuller, M.M. Provost, K. Coleman, K. St. Martin, B. McCay, M. Pinsky. 2019. Adaptation Strategies of Coastal Fishing Communities as Species Shift Poleward. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 76(1), pp.93-103.
- Dubik, B., E. Clark, T. Young, S.B. Jones Zigler, M. Provost, M. Pinsky, K. St. Martin. 2019. Governing Fisheries in the Face of Change: Social Responses to Long-term Geographic Shifts in a U.S. Fishery. Marine Policy 99: 243-251.
Concerning Marine Spatial Planning and ontological politics:
- Campbell, L., K. St. Martin, L. Fairbanks, N. Boucquey, and S. Wise. 2020. The Portal is the Plan: Governing US Oceans in Regional Assemblages, Maritime Studies doi: 10.1007/s40152-020-00173-3.
- Karnad, D. and K. St. Martin. 2020. Assembling Marine Spatial Planning in the Global South: International Agencies and the Fate of Fishing Communities in India, Maritime Studies doi: 10.1007/s40152-020-00164-4.
- Boucquey, N., L. Fairbanks, K. St. Martin, L. Campbell. 2019. Ocean Data Portals: Performing a New Infrastructure for Oceans Governance. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 37(3): 484-503.
- Fairbanks, L., L. Campbell, N. Boucquey, K. St. Martin. 2018. Assembling Enclosure: Reading Marine Spatial Planning for Alternatives. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108:1:144-161.
- Boucquey, N., L. Fairbanks, K. St. Martin, L. Campbell, and B. McCay. 2016. The Ontological Politics of Marine Spatial Planning: (Re)Assembling the Ocean and Shaping the Capacities of ‘Community’ and ‘Environment.’ Geoforum 75: 1-11.
Courses:
Introduction to Geographic Information Systems 01:450:321:01 (02)
Geographic Perspectives 16:450:601:01
Rethinking Economy 16:450:606:02
Geography, Space, and Social Theory 16:450:607:01
Education:
2000 National Research Council (NRC) Associateship.
1999 Ph.D., Graduate School of Geography, Clark University .
1989 MSc, Geography, University of Massachusetts , Amherst .
1985 BA, Geography, University of Massachusetts , Amherst . Minor: Asian Studies.
Jonah Walters, Tyler Young, Arianna Lindberg, and Sahithya Venkatesan, Divya Karnad, Nathanial Gabriel, Eric Sarmiento, Sean Tanner, Luke Drake, Daniel Danza, and Scott Salmon.
