‘We are the oceans, we are the people!’: fisher people’s struggles for blue justice

ABSTRACT

Fisher people and their communities around the world have been key social actors in seafood production and they are still feeding the world with about two-thirds of the catches destined for direct human consumption. However, they are subjected to a wide range of injustices due to coastal and offshore investment projects and the inequalities embedded in the global capitalist marine economy. These injustices are manifested through socio-environmental conflicts, which have been studied and mapped in the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) together with other social actors’ resistances. This article examines 120 fisher folk conflicts that have been identified, documented and mapped in the EJAtlas, while proposing a Blue Justice framework to understand their underlying causes and how fisher people confront such injustices. As a grounded theoretical approach emerging from the scrutiny of fisher resistances and building on environmental justice, critical marine sociology and political economy literatures, the Blue Justice framework proposed here focuses on three dimensions: (i) material and biophysical dimension, (ii) spatial justice, and (iii) autonomy and sovereignty. In adopting this framework, this analysis reveals the blue layers of environmental justice by uncovering both the causes of conflicts faced by fisher communities and their political agency.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental justice
• blue justice
• marine social metabolism
• ocean grabbing
• fisher conflicts
• fisher struggles

Acknowledgements

This paper has been developed thanks to the research conducted within the ‘EnvJustice’ project (GA 695446) funded by the European Research Council (ERC). I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism and suggestions, editorial team of the journal for their support as well as Alex Burak Franklin for careful English editing. Finally, I am indebted to fisher people and their organizations for collaborating and generously sharing their opinions and experiences with me.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This was the slogan of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples’ (WFFP) 7th General Assembly, which took place in New Delhi, India, in November 2017. See its theme song by the Media Collective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY-hKP-5Azw. See also the blog text by Masifundise on the 7th General Assembly (8 December 2017): https://www.masifundise.org/oceans-waters-people-7th-general-assembly-world-forum-fisher-peoples-asserts-small-scale-fishers-human-rights-food-sovereignty/

2 See the online database at: www.ejatlas.org

3 TBTI defines itself as a ‘global research network and knowledge mobilization partnership’ and its name refers to the slogan that ‘Small-Scale Fisheries are Too Big To Ignore’. For more information see: toobigtoignore.net

4 See Jentoft (2019) for his book and chapter on Blue Justice; Isaac’s effort (2019) to frame fisheries debates from a human rights approach, TBTI Communication Brief on Blue Justice (2019) as well as a forthcoming book in TBTI Global Book Series on Blue Justice from an interactive governance perspective. The concept was also discussed extensively in the 2019 MARE Conference.

5 For detailed information on the ERC-funded EnvJustice project and its academic outcomes see: www.envjustice.org

6 Cases in which oil spills occurred and affected the marine ecosystem and fishing area (see Supplementary Table 1 and next section for concrete instances) as well as proposed gas pipeline construction or offshore hydrocarbon extraction projects, are conflict examples under this category, where the fisher folk entered in conflict with fossil fuel-based industries either due to observed contamination or to the potential threat they pose.

7 As of 31 March 2020, there have been 120 conflicts documented in the ‘Aquaculture and fisheries’ second level category from among 3,093 identified and documented cases in the global EJAtlas database (www.ejatlas.org).

8 Different types of investment projects – displayed with varying colors on the map – leading to conflicts with fisher communities can be seen both in the Map 1 and the Supplementary Table 1.

9 See the featured map on Blockadia in the EJAtlas database: https://ejatlas.org/featured/blockadia

10 See https://globalclimatestrike.net

11 See the webpage of KIARA: http://www.kiara.or.id; and a media article on their movement: Guerrero and Herawati (2017).

12 See information on this conflict in the EJAtlas (2018a).

13 See information on this fisher struggle in the EJAtlas (2018d).

Additional information

Funding

This paper has been developed thanks to the research conducted within the ‘EnvJustice’ project (GA 695446) funded by the European Research Council (ERC); H2020 European Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Irmak Ertör

Irmak Ertör is a political ecologist working on fisheries and aquaculture, food and marine politics, and environmental justice. She is an assistant professor in the Ataturk Institute for Modern Turkish History, Bogazici University, Istanbul. Before her current position, she has been a post-doctoral researcher of the ERC-funded EnvJustice project in ICTA-UAB (Autonomous University of Barcelona), where she also completed her PhD by being part of the ENTITLE (European Network of Political Ecology) project (Marie Curie-ITN).