Oceans of Finance and Commodification

Abstract

Abstract In this essay Khalili surveys the maritime as a space of commodification and of creation of new financial forms and instruments. Maritime transportation made possible the colonization of the Americas, Asia, and Africa and the enslavement and transoceanic commodification of millions of humans. Since then, not just what is transported upon the deep, but the sea itself has also been commodified. The seas’ geophysical contours, their seabeds, the species of flora and fauna that inhabit them, and even the ephemeral routes on their surfaces have been transformed into commodities, ripe for exchange, speculation, and juridification.