Appropriation, responsabilité et équité

Blue Justice webinar series
SEries of QUestions on Equity at sea

As a provider of energy, goods and services, and a vector for trade, the ocean is already an essential component of global economic development, and this is expected to increase in the coming decades. This growth of the so-called “blue economy” is associated with the generation of wealth and employment, and changes in ways of life for coastal and maritime people and communities. It also comes with multiple claims on the ocean for food, material and space, and with a growing human footprint and degradation regarding      the functioning of marine ecosystems and the contributions to people they support. The ocean is mainly seen as a commodity in the perspective of the “blue economy”, underlining developments since the enlightenment that consider human beings and the (marine) environment as separate entities. These developments raise the questions of how we want to shape or change our human-ocean relations in times of socio-ecological crisis, and address issues of access regulations and liability, as part of policies designed to ensure the sustainability of the blue economy, within and across multiple sectors. A key question in thinking about such regulations is that of equity considerations, and how these can affect the capacity for long-term collective management arrangements and the ocean as common good to be sustained. There is a long research tradition on these      questions in the social sciences, which can help inform current debates on how such considerations can best be addressed.

The Blue Justice webinar series aims to establish a scientific forum to present and debate disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives and empirical case studies regarding equity at sea. Scholars from a wide range of      perspectives in the social sciences are invited to present work ranging from the review or development of conceptual work to applied research, in short (maximum 25mn) presentations, that are followed by a moderated discussion, the total duration of each webinar being limited to 1 hour.

The webinar is sponsored by the AMURE joint research unit in Brest, Kiel Marine Science and the OMER Research Network.