Maritime controversies

This introduction addresses a dual question: the first concerns the specificity of the sea as an object of research and the second questions the heuristic power of the notion of controversy to understand maritime issues. Based on several studies on the sea and its issues, this article attempts to show how the first disputes over the sea contributed to its qualification as a political space, an object of competition and regulation, requiring the production of specific political and regulatory frameworks. The article then focuses on the links between the knowledge produced about the sea and its resources and the social order. In particular, it considers the forms of production and legitimization of knowledge, their hierarchization and their translation into political decisions. Finally, the presentation of the articles in the issue allows us to emphasize the plurality of social worlds and justifications mobilized to qualify maritime challenges. This leads us, in fine, to highlight the relevance of an approach through the bias of controversies in order to analyze in the same set of productions that are heterogeneous both from the point of view of the perspectives retained and the scales taken into account.