Nathalie Mezza-Garcia

Research Interests: sea level rise, floating cities, Special Economic Zones, governance extraterritoriality, SeaZones, seasteading

Supervisors: Dr Emma Uprichard and Dr Nathaniel Tkacz.

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Research Topic

Thesis Topic: Governance and Complexity in Special Economic Sea Zones: The Floating Island Project in French Polynesia.

My doctoral work is on governance and complexity in maritime Special Economic SeaZones. Using an ethnographic methodology and the case study of the floating Special Economic Zone entitled Floating Island Project in French Polynesia, my thesis examines, from a complex systems perspective, the possibilities, limitations, and challenges of setting up special jurisdictions with emerging and alternative and forms of governance, which use complex governance and legal, digital and spatial extraterritoriality as a response to the challenges of pre-existing forms of governance for governing complexity. My thesis argues that complexity challenges creating special jurisdictions nested in nation-states for three reasons. First, complexity pervades formal processes and institutions used to create special jurisdictions. Second, complexity entails engaging with diverse stakeholders at the local and global levels. Third, complexity involves interactions of networked cross-temporal and cross-spatial processes.

I'm funded by Fundación CEIBA.

Publications

Mezza-Garcia, N. (2019). Self-Organized Collective Action and the Floating Island Project. In Chapter 4. Cante & Torres (2019). Non-Violent Political Economy, Theory and Applications.

Mezza-Garcia, N. (2017). "The Floating Island Project: Self-Organizing Complexity." Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Proceedings 1.3 (2017): 173.

Cante, F & Mezza-Garcia, N (2017). Asymmetric Frontiers, Environmental Insecurity and Migrations. V 14 (28). Intellector, Brazil.

Maldonado, C.E. & Mezza-Garcia, N. (2016). Anarchy and Complexity. Emergence: Complexity & Organization. 18(1) .

Mezza-Garcia, N., & Maldonado, C. E. (2015). Critica_al_control_jerarquico_de_los_regimenes_politicos: Complejidad y Topología.pdf . Revista Desafíos , 27 (1), 121-158. ISSN: 0124-4035.

Mezza-Garcia, N., Froese, T., & Fernández, N. Reflections on the Complexity of Ancient Social Heterarchies: Toward New Models of Social Self-Organization in Pre-Hispanic Colombia. Journal of Sociocybernetics, 12 (1/2), 2014.

Mezza-Garcia, N. (2014). Towards a World without Nation-States (Hacia un Mundo sin Estados-Nación). Periódico Desde Abajo. April/May.

Mezza-Garcia, N. (2014). Qué tan Atípica es la Situación de Crimea. Periódico El Nuevo Siglo. April.

Maldonado, C. E., & Mezza-Garcia, N. (2014). Introduciendo la Complejidad en Política y Relaciones Internacionales Complejidad en Politica y Relaciones Internacionales. Bogotá: Universidad del Rosario. ISSN: 1692-8113.

Mezza-Garcia, N. (2013). Bio-Inspired Political Systems: Opening a Field. In T. Gilbert, M. Kirkilionis, & G. Nicolis (Ed.), Proceedings of the European Conference on Complex Systems 2012 (pp. 785-812). Springer.

Mezza-Garcia, N. (2013). Self-Organized Sociopolitical Interactions as the Best Way to Achieve Organized Patterns in Human Social Systems: Going beyond the Top-Down Control of Classical Political Regimes. Undergraduate dissertation, Universidad del Rosario.

Mezza-Garcia, N. (2006). El Libro del Deseo. Periódico San Victorino. Bogotá: April/May.

Videos:

Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj-vZE_cot-n_lqy13MMUnA

Undergraduate Defense: Introducing Sociopolitical Self-Organisation

Contact

Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies

University of Warwick CV4 7AL

Email: n dot mezza-garcia at warwick dot ac dot uk