Blue justice: a review of emerging scholarship and resistance movements

Abstract

The term “ blue justice ” was coined in 2018 during the 3rd World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress. Since then, academic engagement with the concept has grown rapidly. This article reviews 5 years of blue justice scholarship and synthesizes some of the key perspectives, developments, and gaps. We then connect this literature to wider relevant debates by reviewing two key areas of research – first on blueinjusticesandsecondongrassrootsresistancetotheseinjustices.Muchoftheearlyscholarshipon bluejusticefocusedoninjusticesexperiencedbysmall-scalefishersinthecontextoftheblueeconomy. Incontrast,morerecentwritingandtheempiricalcasesreviewedheresuggestthatintersectingforms ofoppressionrendercertaincoastalindividualsandgroupsvulnerabletoblueinjustices.These developmentssignalanexpansionofthebluejusticeliteraturetoabroadersetofaffectedgroupsand underlyingcausesofinjustice.Ourreviewalsosuggeststhatwhilegrassrootsresistanceeffortsledby coastal communities have successfully stopped unfair exposure to environmental harms, preserved their livelihoods and ways of life, defended their culture and customary rights, renegotiated power distributions, and proposed alternative futures, these efforts have been underemphasized in the blue justice scholarship, and from marine and coastal literature more broadly. We conclude with some suggestions for understanding and supporting blue justice now and into the future.