Blue Citizenship

Blue Citizenship begins with a simple observation: the ocean makes visible how deeply interconnected our world already is. Ocean currents, climate systems, biodiversity loss, pollution, shipping, fisheries, and rising sea levels transcend national borders and link distant societies in ways that challenge purely territorial ways of thinking. The Spilhaus projection map, which places the ocean rather than continents at the center, illustrates this shift in perspective particularly well.

For us, Blue Citizenship is therefore not only an environmental concept, but also a question of justice, democracy, and political imagination. What fascinates us most is its potentially transformative character: citizenship is no longer defined solely through the relationship between an individual and a state or territory, but through the relationship between individuals and a shared, transnational, life-sustaining ocean.

This raises a fundamental question: how can this relationship be politically and legally shaped in ways that create both rights and responsibilities? Blue Citizenship explores how people can become not only users or observers of the ocean, but political participants in shaping its future collectively and across borders.