WEBINAR: Jessica Blythe on Blue Justice

 

On Tuesday, the 2nd of April 2024, the PECS working group on collaborative governance and management hosted another webinar: Michael Schoon invited Jessica Blythe to talk about ‘Blue justice: a review of emerging scholarship and resistance movements‘.

Coastal communities, Indigenous peoples, and small-scale fishers are intimately connected with the ocean. Yet, these historically and structurally marginalized groups often bear a disproportionate distribution of coastal and marine harms and are often excluded from marine decision-making. In response, calls for blue justice are emerging. The research reviews key perspectives, new developments, and gaps in the emerging blue justice scholarship. It also synthesizes existing case studies of blue injustices and review some of the many successful examples of grassroots resistance efforts to help define what blue justice entails. The aim is to help center the knowledge, strength, and agency of coastal communities responding to blue injustices. Ultimately, concerted efforts are needed by all to support and empower coastal communities to reject blue injustices and to achieve their diverse aspirations for blue justice.

Jessica Blythe is an Associate Professor at Brock University. Jessica’s research focuses on how communities experience environmental change and what explains their differential capacities for adaptation and transformation. She is particularly interested in building the resilience of local communities to climate change, securing sustainable small-scale fisheries, and equitable collaborative forms of marine resource governance.  Her empirical work has been based in Eastern Africa, Melanesia, Australia, and most recently in southern Ontario.

You can listen to the recording of the webinar here.

All other past webinars hosted on behalf of the PECS Collaborative Working Group are available here.

 

Text by Michael Schoon/ Upload by Johanna Hofmann