The May 2022 V2V webinar by Dr. Milena Arias Schreiber of the School of Global Studies at Gothenburg University introduced new concepts for the viability of small-scale fisheries. Milena used a justice lense to illustrate that new concepts are needed to describe the experiences of small-scale fisheries people in living under multiple pressures, including blue growth and blue economy. She examines how some of the new concepts can contribute to strengthening the viability of small-scale fisheries. Departing from the origin of the term Blue Justice, Milena shows how concepts can be co-produced through transdisciplinary processes and what contributions they can bring to the future ocean discourses. Her talk is based on a recent co-authored article in Marine Policy titled "Blue Justice and the co-production of hermeneutical resources for small-scale fisheries".
She set out her talk with the headlines of major media outlets focused on all the bad things happening to 'life below water' to paraphrase the Sustainable Development Goal 14. She then showed the huge difference in scholarship between work on how humans impact the ocean compared to how humans are impacting fishing communities, particularly small-scale fisheries through a rough analysis of the numbers of articles coming up with a rough research in Google Scholar. In other words, the 'people above the water' accounting for about 25% of global aquatic food production were given orders of magnitude less attention: small in scale, although big in value. This in itself constitutes an injustice to be rectified.
But how to find the words so that the stories existing in fishing communities are also being told and heard outside, for example by those who eat their fish, by citizens, media and politicians influencing policies and attention to issues in society? Based on the first 20 stories submitted to the platform 'Too big to ignore' to document small-scale fisheries experiences, she and her co-workers identified patterns. Through many iterations, they identified a series of concepts and descriptive terms so that it's easier to pick up, tell the story and act on it.
See the entire, very worthwhile webinar here. The link to the open access article in Marine Policy titled "Blue Justice and the co-production of hermeneutical resources for small-scale fisheries" is here.
