Like all development narratives, it carries both emancipatory and exclusionary potentials. It can mobilize resources for marine conservation and innovation, but it can also mask structural inequalities and legitimize new enclosures of the commons.
maritimeposts.com/ – The concept of the Blue Economy has gained global prominence over the past decade, emerging as a new paradigm for ocean governance, economic development, and environmental sustainability.
Initially popularized by the World Bank, the UN, and coastal nations, the term refers to the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and ocean ecosystem health.
Yet, beneath its appealing rhetoric lies a complex discursive terrain—one that blends ecological concern with capitalist rationalities, and sustainability with expansion.
From the standpoint of development studies and discourse analysis, the Blue Economy can be read not merely as a policy framework but as a narrative of ocean modernization—a way of framing and legitimizing particular interventions, actors, and values in marine and fisheries governance.
This essay unpacks the Blue Economy through critical and post-development lenses, examining how its discourse shapes knowledge, power, and practice, and what must be anticipated to ensure that “blue growth” does not reproduce the same inequalities long criticized in the “green” and “brown” economies before it.
The Blue Economy as a Development Discourse
In development studies, discourses are not neutral descriptions of reality—they are systems of meaning that construct what is seen as “problems” and “solutions.”
Following Michel Foucault’s idea of discourse as a form of power-knowledge, and Arturo Escobar’s critique of development as a regime of truth, the Blue Economy can be understood as a new development narrative—a way of speaking about and governing the ocean that aligns with global sustainability goals yet reflects dominant geopolitical and economic interests.
The Blue Economy emerged from the post-2012 Rio+20 global agenda, positioning itself as a “win–win” approach: balancing environmental conservation with economic growth and social inclusion.
However, this triad often masks tensions between profit-driven ocean industrialization and the livelihoods of small-scale fishers. As a discourse, it reproduces what James Ferguson calls the “anti-politics machine”—the depoliticization of development by framing deeply social and political issues (such as access, rights, and inequality) as technical challenges of governance or innovation.
In marine and fisheries policy, “blue growth” rhetoric frequently emphasizes efficiency, innovation, and investment—framing the ocean as the “new economic frontier.”
This framing carries significant power: it legitimizes new forms of marine spatial planning, investment in offshore aquaculture, and carbon offset mechanisms, while rendering traditional fishing practices or customary tenure systems as “inefficient” or “outdated.”
Competing Narratives: Growth, Sustainability, and Justice
Discourse analysis reveals at least three competing narratives within the Blue Economy:
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The Growth Narrative: Promoted by international agencies and financial institutions, this narrative views the ocean as an underutilized resource base. It frames marine and fisheries sectors as drivers of national GDP growth through export-oriented aquaculture, biotechnology, and energy extraction. The language of “innovation,” “investment,” and “competitiveness” mirrors neoliberal development discourse, prioritizing economic value creation over local well-being.
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The Sustainability Narrative: This strand emphasizes ecosystem health and the sustainable use of marine resources. It underpins global frameworks like the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 — “Life Below Water.” Yet, sustainability is often operationalized through managerial and technocratic tools (marine protected areas, certification, carbon trading) that may exclude local voices or reconfigure access rights in favor of global environmental governance.
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The Justice Narrative: Emerging from grassroots movements, NGOs, and critical scholars, this discourse centers on equity, participation, and recognition. It insists that the Blue Economy must not only be sustainable but also just, acknowledging the historical marginalization of coastal and indigenous communities. This narrative resonates with the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, which advocate a human rights–based approach to marine governance.
The Politics of Knowledge and Representation
From a development discourse perspective, the Blue Economy’s power lies in its capacity to define legitimate knowledge. Technical and economic expertise—produced by marine scientists, economists, and policymakers—dominates decision-making spaces, while experiential and traditional ecological knowledge of fishers often remains sidelined.
This epistemic hierarchy echoes what postcolonial theorists describe as epistemic violence—the suppression of alternative ways of knowing and living with the sea.
For instance, marine spatial planning (MSP), often promoted as a key Blue Economy tool, claims to “optimize” ocean space. Yet, whose optimization counts?
By mapping the sea through economic lenses—zones for fishing, energy, tourism, and conservation—MSP can inadvertently dispossess small-scale fishers whose territories are unrecognized in official cartographies. The sea becomes reimagined not as a living cultural landscape, but as a grid of economic functions.
Moreover, the discourse of “innovation” often privileges digital and industrial technologies—AI-based fishing systems, traceability apps, or blue finance instruments—over low-tech, community-based sustainability models.
In this sense, the Blue Economy mirrors the smart development rhetoric seen in terrestrial contexts, where technology is treated as a neutral fix rather than a social choice shaped by power.
Anticipating the Future: From Blue Growth to Blue Justice
If the Blue Economy is to fulfill its promise as a sustainable and inclusive development paradigm, several anticipatory shifts are needed.
1. From Commodification to Stewardship.
The ocean must not be reduced to a commodity frontier. A just Blue Economy requires recognizing the ocean as a common heritage of humanity—an ecological and cultural space that sustains life, not merely a site for extraction. This implies policies that protect customary rights, local tenure systems, and intergenerational stewardship.
2. From Technocracy to Democracy.
Ocean governance must be democratized. Decision-making should not be dominated by technocrats or private investors but include meaningful participation of small-scale fishers, indigenous groups, and women. Participatory mapping, co-management, and community science initiatives can rebalance knowledge and power.
3. From Efficiency to Equity.
Development outcomes must be assessed not by growth rates but by their impact on equity. Blue investments should include redistributive mechanisms—community benefit-sharing, fair trade certification, and access to finance for local cooperatives—to prevent the capture of ocean wealth by elites.
4. From Growth Metrics to Wellbeing Indicators.
Development evaluation in marine and fisheries should move beyond GDP and export values. Integrating social-ecological indicators—food security, cultural vitality, resilience—offers a more holistic measure of a thriving ocean economy.
5. From “Blue” to “Just Blue.”
Ultimately, the Blue Economy must evolve into what scholars now call the Blue Justice framework—one that interrogates who benefits, who decides, and who bears the ecological cost of “blue growth.” This requires continuous critical reflection and adaptive governance rooted in ethics, solidarity, and care.
Dear Readers, viewed through the lens of discourse analysis and development studies, the Blue Economy is more than a policy—it is a powerful story about the future of the oceans.
Like all development narratives, it carries both emancipatory and exclusionary potentials. It can mobilize resources for marine conservation and innovation, but it can also mask structural inequalities and legitimize new enclosures of the commons.
To anticipate its trajectory, scholars and practitioners must remain critically engaged—questioning who defines “blue,” whose interests are advanced, and what forms of life are valued or erased in the name of sustainability.
As the world turns toward the sea for solutions to climate change and economic recovery, the challenge is not merely to make the economy blue, but to make it just, inclusive, and genuinely transformative.
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Tamarunang, 12/10/2025
References
Core Theoretical Works (Discourse & Development Studies)
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Escobar, A. (1995). Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton University Press.
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Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Pantheon Books.
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Ferguson, J. (1994). The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. University of Minnesota Press.
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Dryzek, J. S. (2013). The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
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Hajer, M. A. (1995). The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process. Oxford University Press.
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Peet, R., & Hartwick, E. (2015). Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments, Alternatives (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
Blue Economy & Marine Policy
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Silver, J. J., Gray, N. J., Campbell, L. M., Fairbanks, L. W., & Gruby, R. L. (2015). Blue Economy and Competing Discourses in International Oceans Governance. The Journal of Environment & Development, 24(2), 135–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1070496515580797
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Voyer, M., Quirk, G., McIlgorm, A., & Azmi, K. (2018). Shades of blue: What do competing interpretations of the Blue Economy mean for oceans governance? Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 20(5), 595–616. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2018.1473153
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Cohen, P. J., Allison, E. H., Andrew, N. L., Cinner, J. E., Evans, L. S., Fabinyi, M., … & Ratner, B. D. (2019). Securing a just space for small-scale fisheries in the Blue Economy. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, 171. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00171
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World Bank & United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2017). The Potential of the Blue Economy: Increasing Long-term Benefits of the Sustainable Use of Marine Resources for Small Island Developing States and Coastal Least Developed Countries. World Bank.
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FAO. (2015). Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
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OECD. (2016). The Ocean Economy in 2030. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
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United Nations. (2012). The Future We Want. Outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).
Critical and Postcolonial Perspectives on Marine Development
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Bennett, N. J., Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Blythe, J., Silver, J. J., Singh, G. G., Andrews, N., … & Sumaila, U. R. (2019). Towards a sustainable and equitable Blue Economy. Nature Sustainability, 2(11), 991–993. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0404-1
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Johnson, D., & Dalton, G. (Eds.). (2021). The Blue Economy Handbook of the Indian Ocean Region. Routledge.
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Said, A., & MacMillan, D. (2020). Re-grasping the concept of marine justice: Blue growth and the reconfiguration of access to marine space. Marine Policy, 122, 104242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104242
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Barbesgaard, M. (2018). Blue growth: Savior or ocean grabbing? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 45(1), 130–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1377186
Supplementary & Methodological References
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Jentoft, S., & Chuenpagdee, R. (2015). Interactive Governance for Small-Scale Fisheries: Global Reflections. Springer.
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Havice, E., & Zalik, A. (2019). Ocean frontiers: Epistemologies, jurisdictions, commodifications. International Social Science Journal, 68(229-230), 219–235.
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Kaarhus, R. (2018). Blue growth and ocean governance—A discursive approach. Forum for Development Studies, 45(1), 1–25.