Paper short abstract:

the paper aims to draw attention to the ambiguities of the blue economy in proposing a conservationist approach without rethinking the dogmas of a neoliberal acceleration. Local conceptions of the sea as commons rise practices of degrowth that offer a way of resistance to narratives of development.

Paper long abstract:

The urgency of the challenges posed by climate change and the focus on new models of sustainable development invests the African continent with a new ferment of economic growth. This is where blue economy policies and the myth of blue growth come in. The oceans assume a key role in rethinking the economic future of the African continent, which extends well beyond marginal coastal and island contexts now at the center of global agendas, and which also concerns landlocked African states. Based on an ethnography conducted in the Comoros islands, this contribution aims to draw attention to the ambiguities of the blue economy concept in proposing a conservationist approach without rethinking the dogmas of a neoliberal economic acceleration. In the management of marine protected areas, community solutions drive the resources and concepts of the blue economy in unprecedented temporalities. Local conceptions of the sea and coastal spaces as commons underpin from-below forms of re-appropriation of economic-conservationist rhetoric, even from a political-identitarian perspective. In other cases, individual tactics for zero-impact living embodied forms of resistance to globally imposed economic models of blue growth. Amidst the interstices of a productivist model, in the urgency of preserving the marine ecosystem, rise different practices of degrowth that offer a concrete way to rethink “from the sea” power relations and hegemonic narratives. These spontaneous practices are an expression of a maritime Africa capable of unthinking the concept of development as well as to question and overturn a continental hegemony.