Empowerment and Blue Justice in Coastal Communities

This thematic issue brings together inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives to examine how coastal communities are engaging with transition processes, sustainability transformations, and justice concerns. Through empirical studies and theoretical reflections, the issue explores how communities redefine their relationships with marine resources, negotiate power dynamics in environmental governance, and develop innovative socio-ecological and socio-technical tools for inclusive coastal futures.

Key themes include:

•    Transition mechanisms and changed practices: Examining how co-creation processes transform marine governance, evidenced through case studies in just and inclusive coastal transitions.

• Co-creation and participatory governance: Analysing knowledge co-production and participatory methods for sustainable marine resource management.
• Blue Justice and local empowerment: Exploring conflicts in marine planning, displacement, and exclusion, including perspectives on planning in absentia.

•    Alternative blue economies: Assessing how traditional coastal knowledge can be institutionalized to ensure equity, including the Leaving No One Behind (LNOB) principles.

• Living Labs and Nature-Based Solutions: Understanding how experimental approaches such as Transition Coastal Labs (TCLs) contribute to participatory conservation.

By drawing on case studies from around the world, this special issue provides a comparative lens on the struggles and possibilities of coastal empowerment. It aims to advance scholarly and policy discussions on how to ensure that Blue Growth agendas do not replicate past inequalities but instead contribute to equitable and thriving coastal futures.

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Ocean and Society is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).

Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.