I am an Ocean Leaders Postdoctoral Fellow and my research interests bring together political ecology and political economy. I currently work on seabed/deep sea mining and am particularly interested in how terrestrial conceptualisations of sovereignty over resources and property rights are complicated by the (geo)physical characteristics of the seabed. Central to these discussions are questions of varying sovereignties, exclusions and inclusions in the ocean space.

I am also a member of the Post-Imperial Oceanics Working Group at the University of California, Berkeley and of the Deep Seas Thinking collective, an Anglo-Japanese research network dedicated to understanding the global politics of DSM. My doctoral research looked at the emergence of the blue economy agenda in Namibia with particular reference to marine phosphate mining.

My fieldwork has taken place in Namibia and South Africa. I also continue to work on terrestrial extraction and have undertaken fieldwork in Serbia and Kosovo, drawing on my interests in the relationship between space, volume and mining.

I have previously held a Visiting PhD Researcher position at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Visiting Scholar position at the University of Namibia. Alongside my PhD I was an Associate Lecturer at Lancaster University, where I designed and delivered a course on Political Ecology for Materials Science PhD students. I also worked as a Senior Associate Teacher in Human Geography at the University of Bristol.

Carver (forthcoming) Extraction and the Ocean “Frontier”: Dispossession, Exclusion and Resistance in Namibia. Antipode.

Carver, R., Childs, J., Steinberg, P., Mabon, L., Matsuda.H., Squire, R., McLellan, B., Esteban, M. (2020) A critical social perspective on deep sea mining: Lessons from the emergent industry in Japan. Ocean and Coastal Management, 193.

Carver, R. (2020) Lessons for blue degrowth from Namibia’s emerging blue economy. Sustainability Science, 15, 131–143.

Carver, R. (2019) Resource sovereignty and accumulation in the blue economy: The case of seabed mining in Namibia. Journal of Political Ecology, 26.

Policy facing articles:
Carver, R. (2018), ‘Navigating new ocean policies in Namibia’, Africa in Fact – Journal of Good Governance Africa, 44.