The Journal of Political Ecology is seeking contributions for a Special Issue on “Political Ecologies of the Blue Economy in Africa”.
Describing the potential contribution to human wellbeing provided by seas, oceans and their resources, the ‘blue economy’ and ‘blue growth’ agenda have variously become a guiding frame, policy discourse and set of practices across the globe. However, at the same time and with limited exceptions (e.g. Winder and Le Heron 2017), there has yet to be a sustained critical analysis which draws upon the fact that blue growth is simultaneously an economic, social, biological and geologic project. What are the political implications for scripting oceans and water as part of an economic imaginary of ‘progress’ and ‘growth’, and of separating it from landed ‘green’ economies’? As the ‘blue’ (like the ‘green’) is reworked spatially into a language of new ‘frontiers’, ‘opportunities’ and ‘alternative sustainabilities’ (Cavanagh and Benjaminsen 2017), what new political ecologies might emerge?
POLLEN 