In ‘Deterritorializing Preface,’ the text reveals how descriptors and common word associations with the land are a conscious act that centers land over the ocean. This reading offers precise language to recenter the ocean as a place with its own merit and agency outside of its proximity to land. Even before presenting these alternative definitions, the author states that ‘moving offshore reshapes our vocabulary (xv),’ which allows for the structure of the text itself to also deterritorialize as it provides a mental shift that moves the reader’s focus from the land to the ocean. In all seven alternative vocabularies, the author places the word ‘formerly’ next to the terrestrial-based vocabulary and is enclosed within a parenthesis. This confined position within the parenthesis minimizes the presence of the terrestrial vocabulary and highlights the aquatic/ocean-based vocabulary. This visual focus on the oceanic word continues to shift the gaze of the reader toward the ocean and further pushes them into the open waters of a new way of interacting with language. In the last section of the text, the author states that they nearly wrote down the phrase ‘change the world’ instead of ‘change the ocean.’ The phrase ‘change the world’ has been used as a call to action to inspire individuals to try to fix injustices or problems that Earth faces. However, the ‘world’ usually calls to mind images of land and solid ground and largely excludes the 70% world that’s covered in water. By changing this common phrase to ‘change the ocean,’ the text once again centers on the ocean as a physical place where an active change can occur, especially one that involves connotations that certain vocabularies can bring.  

Steve Mentz, Ocean (Bloomsbury, 2020): “Deterritorializing Preface” (pgs. xv-xviii)