Blue growth: savior or ocean grabbing?

2017/10/30 by Mads Barbesgaard · 3 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #Coastal and Marine Management #Sustainability and Climate Change Governance

paper · doi:10.1080/03066150.2017.1377186

openalex publication_date 2017/10/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

While the global rush to control land resources is well established, ‘power-grabs’ in relation to marine and coastal resources are less well researched. Under the banner of ‘blue growth’, such power-grabs are taking shape through global policy processes that purportedly align the needs of the poor with profit interests and climate change concerns. This contribution critically interrogates these policy proposals and situates them within broader neoliberalization of nature debates. It is argued that the policy proposals fail on their own terms and are a form of ‘antipolitics’ that precludes more radical visions of addressing environmental and climate change issues. In an attempt to challenge this, small-scale fishers’ movements are increasingly framing their opposition in terms of the broader struggle for ‘food sovereignty’.

Citations

• Food sovereignty
• Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?
• Neoliberalising Nature: The Logics of Deregulation and Reregulation
• The Nature That Capital Can See: Science, State, and Market in the Commodification of Ecosystem Services
• The Tragedy of the Commons
• Ocean grabbing

Cited by

• Is Understanding ‘Fish as Food’ Enough? Reclaiming Power and Politics in Aquatic Food Research and Policy
• Systems of reciprocity in human–ocean relationships: Across time, place, language and culture
• Beyond growth: Reshaping fisheries for a wellbeing economy