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While the ocean space has long been ignored by social sciences, the past 15 years have witnessed an increased interest in the marine environment by scholars in Human Geography. The academic literature on the blue economy, almost non-existent a few years ago, is now burgeoning. The academic debate has offered some critical assessment of blue economy initiatives, but more needs to be done to address the true place of environmental protection within a blue economy, and to put people at the centre of concerns and analyses. Of particular concern, is the ambiguity of the blue economy concept and the confusion over its social and environmental sustainability, which can ultimately result in harmful practices. An important question is then how should social scientists in general and geographers, specifically, engage with these debates, and in particular how should the potential human and social costs of the blue economy be investigated and addressed while assuring justice and fairness? The papers presented here share the vision that environmental sustainability, justice and equality should be at the heart of the blue economy; not just conceptually, but practically too. The papers pursue efforts to identify blue economy risks and the mechanisms through which they occur; assess the place of inclusion and participation in a sustainable blue economy; define what blue economy policies should include to drive just and sustainable practices; and identify where the dominant understandings of the blue economy and its priorities are coming from. In other words, they put considerations of justice and broader cultural structures at the centre of their concerns and analysis. They also highlight the need to bypass geographical boundaries and gain insights from other disciplines and methodologies to grasp such an encompassing concept, and foster not just a blue economy with social justice, but a blue economy for social justice.
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Geography has engaged in insightful discussions on how to understand, analyze, criticize, and implement the blue economy. United Nations agencies, Small Island Developing States, and increased academic interest in oceans have played important roles in the global adoption of the blue economy idea, that is, the sustainable exploitation of marine and coastal resources. Geographical research on the blue economy has addressed key themes such as economic and political discourse, relational thinking and assemblage, sustainability and just transitions, and blue economy risks.
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Despite repeated calls for more inclusive practices, approaches used to address current challenges within the ocean-climate nexus do not sufficiently account for the complexity of the human-social-ecological system. So far, this has prevented efficient and just decision-making and policies. We propose to shift towards systems-informed decision making, which values transdisciplinary system-thinking and cumulative impact assessments, and encourages multi-system collaboration among decision-makers in order to address the recurring technicality of policies and to foster just solutions that account for the needs of varied actors across the sustainable development spectrum.
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Resource type
- Book Section (2)
- Journal Article (2)
Publication year
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Between 2000 and 2026
(4)
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Between 2010 and 2019
(1)
- 2016 (1)
- Between 2020 and 2026 (3)
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Between 2010 and 2019
(1)
Resource language
- English (3)