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Paper short abstract:

How can museums enable reflection and learning about the ocean as part of environmental citizenship? This paper discusses approaches with which 'blue museums' can become drivers of a sustainable climate transition, and how the concept of 'ocean citizenship' can be helpful in such an effort.

Paper long abstract:

Interested, informed, and active people are vital if green transitions are to become a global movement that leads to more sustainable ways of being in the world. Museums worldwide attempt to become drivers of a sustainable climate transition. This paper argues that ‘blue museums’ (here understood as museums, information centres, heritage sites, and vessels oriented towards the ocean due to research, collection, exhibition, and teaching) have a special responsibility and opportunity in this context. The ocean is where many human-driven ecological impacts and disasters can be observed, and a societal shift towards a sustainable future will thus also need to address human impacts on the ocean.

I start my paper by clarifying three central concepts – 'environmental citizenship', 'historical consciousness', and the 'participative museum' – before I discuss the concept of 'oceanic citizenship'. I argue that the development of oceanic citizenship must focus on three skills, namely transitional skills, transnational skills, and transdisciplinary skills. The participatory museum, which has abandoned the dichotomy of nature and culture, is particularly suitable for strengthening these skills. In the next step, I discuss current innovative approaches from museums near and far from the coast that narrate 'blue heritage', and thus become places of learning for oceanic citizenship. Finally, I will suggest how we can promote an international 'blue curatorship' and how we can strengthen the exchange between academia and museum professionals.