Contested Coastal Commons and Blue Spatial Justice: Enclosures, Rescaling, and Resistance in Northern Norway

The coastal commons are increasingly contested around the world, coming under pressure from competing interests. In particular, the discourses of ‘blue economy’ and ‘blue growth’ have become powerful buzzwords, giving rise to concerns about the impacts on communities depending on coastal resources, such as small-scale fishers. In Norway, aquaculture is the second-most important export industry in the country, but there are increasing conflicts with other interests, including small-scale fishers and coastal Sami. In this article, I trace how the push for gaining recognition for a State-backed fundamental right to fish for small-scale fishers in Finnmark, including coastal Sami, was modified and rescaled to become an issue of balancing competing interests at the local level through municipal planning processes. Drawing on insights from socio-spatial scholarship, I argue that more explicit attention to spatialities of coastal conflicts is important in understanding conflicts in the coastal commons. I propose the term ‘blue spatial justice’ as a means to supplement and enrich the existing concept of blue justice to encompass a sensibility to the spatial dimensions of justice struggles.