Development and Expansion in the Marine Social Sciences: Insights from the Global Community

Increasing recognition of the human dimensions of climate change, pollution, exploitation, and other threats to the marine environment has resulted in an expansion of marine social science research in recent years. The importance of understanding the complexities of societal relationships with our global ocean, seas and coasts, and how this might influence sustainable management and effective and equitable governance, will be crucial to address the challenges facing our marine systems. Given their growing importance, this paper seeks to undertake a global assessment of the current status and trends in marine social science research and outline the next steps and key directions for the field. Specifically, by adapting established horizon scanning methods, we conduct a survey of the global marine social science research and practitioner community. We find that current research within the marine social sciences is broad, and focused on themes relating to (but not limited to) governance and decision-making, stakeholder participation and engagement, the socio-cultural dimensions of marine systems, ocean literacy, community-based and area-specific management, and the blue economy. We also identify priorities for future research, for example, relating to aspects of social justice, welfare and equity in relation to the use and governance of marine systems, blue growth and the expansion of marine industries, and enhancing ocean literacy to build ocean stewardship and citizenship. Our results, however, suggest several barriers that may prevent the extent to which the marine social sciences can continue to expand and develop in these directions. Barriers include, but are not limited to, the relationship between marine social sciences and other disciplines (i.e. lack of acceptance of marine social science as a legitimate discipline) and the visibility and recognition of marine social science both internal and external to academia (e.g. by policy-makers and practitioners). Finally, we identify a series of enablers for overcoming the barriers identified (e.g. promoting marine social sciences, engaging stakeholders and enlisting champions and building interdisciplinary teams). In doing so, this paper generates prospective thinking and highlights recommendations for effective marine social science research and practice, as well as the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration into the future.