Small-Scale Fisheries in the Blue Economy

Abstract

This chapter explains why it is important to focus on what the Blue Economy/Blue Growth initiatives represent for the sustainability of small-scale fisheries. More specifically, it introduces the concept of Blue Justice as a ‘regulative idea’ for small-scale fisheries research and governance, as it helps authors to form hypotheses that can be tested in empirical research. Given their insecure rights of access to resources and markets, rampant poverty in many instances, and their marginalization in the governance process, small-scale fisheries people have reasons to question the promises of the Blue Economy/Blue Growth and the rhetoric through which it is promoted. To make the Blue Economy/Blue Growth work for small-scale fisheries people, they need to explain their interests and concerns. To that end, they need language to express their justice concerns and claims. We argue that the SSF Guidelines, which FAO member states endorsed in 2014, are a great source of concepts for small-scale fisheries people to use in the policy-making process. We posit that it is important that the Blue Economy/Blue Growth initiatives and the implementation of the SSF Guidelines do not become separate discourses with no linkage between them. The chapter gives an overview of the content of this book, outlining the many case study chapters from around the world of how the Blue Economy/Blue Growth perspectives provide a new context for small-scale fisheries in which they must learn to maneuver.