Prerana Gawde

I am interested in the intersection of marine ecology, archaeology and critical heritage studies asking how the material legacies left in the sea come to be read and valued ecologically and culturally. My research follows shipwrecks in Mauritius where I am exploring what they become and how that becoming is known across the very different communities that use and manage them. My fieldwork combines ecological survey with ethnographic and community-based approaches. Before my PhD, I worked on rights-based fisheries governance through fisher-led resource monitoring, co-management and participatory mapping in Indian Ocean island systems. I am a PADI Divemaster and AAUS scientific diver.