Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa

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Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa Author: Format: Hardback First Published: Published By: Amsterdam University Press
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Pages: 270 Illustrations and other contents: 35 Illustrations, black and white Language: English ISBN: 9789463728218 Categories: ,

This book deals with peoples’ practices, perceptions, emotions and feelings towards aquatic animals, their ecosystems and nature on the early modern Atlantic coasts by addressing exploitation, use, fear, empathy, otherness, and indifference in the relationships established with aquatic environments and resources by Indigenous Peoples and Europeans. It focuses on large aquatic fauna, especially manatees (but also sharks, sea turtles, seals, and others) as they were hunted, consumed, venerated, conceptualised, and recorded by different societies across the early colonial Americas and West Africa. Through a cross-cultural approach drawing on concepts and analytical methods from marine environmental history, the blue humanities and animal studies, this book addresses more-than-human systems where ecologies, geographies, cosmogonies, and cultures are an entangled web of interdependencies.

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“Overall, Humans and Aquatic Animals is an important addition to both Blue Humanities and multispecies studies. Aquatic animals have received sparse attention in the literature of both, providing experts in both new avenues to explore. It is a valuable contribution to the pushback against the nature–culture divide.” - Matthew Plishka, Environment and History, Vol. 31, January 2025 "a highly recommended read for specialists in environmental history and animal history in the Early Modern period, especially in the American, African, Spanish, and Portuguese contexts. Moreover, it is exemplary in many aspects: the guiding thread—the manatee—is never lost; the bibliography is extensive and representative, despite some possible absences; the researcher’s erudition and mastery of natural history are evident; her ecological reflections are sound and timely; and the topic had not been addressed in a work of this scale, despite its relevance."[transl. form Spanish] - Miguel Rodríguez García, Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment , vol. 16, no. 1, 2025

Author Biography

Cristina Brito is an Associate Professor at the History Department at NOVA FCSH, Lisbon, and researcher at CHAM - Center for the Humanities. She is one of the PIs of the ERC Synergy Grant 4-OCEANS: Human History of Marine Life, and of two EEA Grants Bilateral Funds Initiatives.