Coastal Methodologies: Audio-Visual Workbooking in Ayasha Guerin's 'Submerged'

Abstract

This article considers the metrics of coastal methodologies: what we gain, and what we lose, in creating knowledge about the coast. It argues that innovative methodological approaches are needed in order to address the social, racial, and species injustices that often converge along the coastline. This essay focuses on scholar and creative practitioner Ayasha Guerin’s use of audio-visual workbooking as an exemplary model for coastal humanities research. Incorporating and expanding upon approaches pioneered by Black Studies scholars Christina Sharpe and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Guerin’s audio-visual workbooking process pilots an ethos of anti-hydrostasis: an approach that unsettles historical oceanic/coastal archives. By piecing together personal camera footage of the coast with historical images of Black and Indigenous whalers, Guerin’s critical-creative method cultivates an attentive and meaningful connection to the lived resonances of coastal histories.