The delimitation of Bangladesh’s maritime boundary with her neighbouring states has defined a clear geopolitical boundary and established state’s jurisdiction over ocean resources in the northernmost Bay of Bengal. Different initiatives and activities were subsequently undertaken in the coastal and marine areas, which showcase a collective interest within different state agencies to explore the potentials of blue economy in Bangladesh. Despite multitude of interpretations assigned to ‘blue economy’ concept by scholars, this study aims to reveal a localized narrative of blue economy in the context of Bangladesh. It also explores how that localized narrative and current trajectories may impact the marginalized marine fishing communities whose very livelihoods depend on fishing in the Bay of Bengal. The study uses data from a literature review, interviews with experts, government officials and development workers, and focus group discussions with fishing communities to understand the underlying blue economy narrative and how it may affect the livelihoods of marine fishing communities in future. This research uses the blue economy narratives proposed by Silver et al. (2015) and Voyer et al. (2018) as a framework to identify the underlying discourse in Bangladesh. Then, common property rights and ecological distributive justice lenses have employed to understand the possible interactions between emergent blue economy discourses and marine fisheries sector. The analyses reveal that the state has undertaken different extractive and exploitative endeavours to develop the undeveloped or unused ocean space, foregrounding a growth agenda. Using national growth and market expansion logics, a clear priority has been made to expand a capitalist ocean with little regards for environmental safety and social equity. However, it is not clear how different state agencies will attain the expected growth because the novel economic frontiers require high technical capacities, skilled manpower, private sec-tor involvement and investments, and effective coordination. Among traditional maritime activities, marine fisheries sector provides the largest number of employments to coastal communities. However, their safety at sea, access to formal financial sectors, conflicts with industrial fishing units, lack of supports during fishing ban seasons remain unaddressed for years, current activities under blue economy seek to strengthen the monitoring and surveillance capacity of different state agencies in order to effectively enforce fisheries management rules. It was found that there is no clear strategy or framework to guide a marine spatial planning process and effective governance when it is expected that the coastal and marine space will be industrialized to fulfil a growth agenda set by the state. To conclude, the state’s current blue economy narrative may bring national growth upon overcoming different challenges, but at the cost of environmental safety and the livelihoods of marginalized fishing communities.

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Arsel, Murat
hdl.handle.net/2105/55882
Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies (AFES)
International Institute of Social Studies

Hossain, Peerzadi Farzana. (2020, December 18). Securing space and access for marginalized fishing communities in an industrialized ocean: How Bangladesh is going to experience it?. Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies (AFES). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/55882